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Investing in Tomorrow

While a lack of resources can diminish the quality of education in significant ways, it’s also a widely accepted fact that more schooling generally leads to both higher individual earnings and a country’s overall economic growth. Indeed, according to UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, for every additional year of a child’s education in the poorest countries, average earnings rise by 11 percent.

© Evan Schneider / UNDPIThe International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, a UNESCO task force, recommended in the late 1990s that governments invest at least 6 percent of their Gross National Product (GNP) on education, covering all grade levels. About one quarter of countries do, but the majority invest less than 5 percent. And even some facing the largest educational challenges, like Niger and Pakistan, still spend less than 3 percent.

It can take 8 to 10 years to see a return on investment in education, says Carolyn Bartholomew, executive director of the Basic Education Coalition. She cites this as one of the main reasons for the lack of funding. However, governments dedicated to improving both access to and the quality of education can provide a significant boost to their country’s long-term economic health. South Korea, for example, has long viewed education as vital to economic expansion. As early as 1959 it had enrolled 96 percent of its children in primary schooling. The next three decades witnessed continued developments in education and sustained economic growth.

Simply reducing the barriers to attending school can have an impact too, especially in developing countries. “Evidence shows that scholarships, lower fees, and subsidies in the form of food and cash transfers conditional on school attendance increase girls’ and boys’ enrollment rates. They also reduce the probability of dropping out of school and close gender gaps in school attainment,” says the World Bank. Abolishing school fees, which still exist in some 80 countries and disproportionately disadvantage the poorest families, has proven successful in many countries. In Ghana, the elimination of school fees in 2004/05 boosted primary school enrollment to an all time high of nearly 93 percent. The case of Malawi offers a cautionary note, though: a rapid increase in enrollment there had the unintended consequence of decreasing the quality of education as schools and teachers were quickly overwhelmed.

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