Education and Development: The Issues and the Evidence



Education and development the issues and the evidence - Education Research Paper
No. 06, 1993, 61 p.

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1.1 Context

In the early 1990's the ODA bilateral programme was disbursing over a billion pounds
annually of which about 10% was classified as educational aid. Educational aid is
therefore a major component of British assistance to development, particularly when it
is remembered that these figures exclude multi-lateral contributions and educational
aspects of projects predominantly located in other sectors.

The significance of human resource development supported by education and training
is manifest. It contributes to medium term institution building, is an essential
complement to many investments in physical infrastructure, and is an integral part of
any definition of development that sees access to educational services of appropriate
quality as a basic human right. In order to improve the planning of educational
assistance it is necessary to take a view on some of the major factors that will shape
educational development over the next decade. These are discussed below after an
introduction to some recent trends which map the terrain over which these factors
operate.

The social and economic environment in which development is taking place has been
changing rapidly. The 1980's have been characterised by increased differentiation
between developing countries in their human development status. The experience of the
last three decades has been used by UNDP to classify countries into three groups those
where sustained human development has taken place (e.g. Botswana, Costa Rica, the
Republic of Korea, Malaysia and Shri Lanka), those where human development has
been disrupted (e.g. Chile, China, Colombia, Jamaica, Kenya and Zimbabwe), and
those where opportunities for human development have been missed (e.g. Brazil,
Nigeria and Pakistan) (UNDP 1990:42). This differentiation is the result of the
interaction of a wide range of factors which include political instability, economic
mismanagement, widespread recession, falling commodity prices, rising interest rates
and levels of indebtedness, and increased distributional skews.

Global patterns of investment in education are complex and there are many choices in
how to analyse them. UNESCO data yields Table 1 which shows how public
expenditure as a proportion of GNP has been changing.

Table 1. Public Expenditure on Education 19-70-88



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