Education and Development

It is safe to say that the current standard of living is the highest in human history. Over the last few decades, we have attained unprecedented levels of life expectancy, per capita income, and educational attainment. This unprecedented prosperity and achievement would almost certainly not have been possible without the continuous technological progress of the postwar period. Most people recognise the importance of education in advancing our socioeconomic development. The importance of education has been extensively researched. Better-educated farmers, for example, have been found to be more responsive to new technological possibilities, and better-educated women are more effective at allocating resources within the family, including those that improve child survival.

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The title "Education and Development" does not imply that education has a one-way, unidirectional causal effect on development. Actually, education and development can have a covariational relationship. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause and effect relationship between the two. Education, for example, can help development by providing better educated human resources, which are necessary for socioeconomic development. Education also lowers fertility rates and, as a result, population growth rates. It also changes the labour force structure and encourages rural-urban migration. 

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On the other hand, a country's level of socioeconomic development is likely to influence its level of education. Countries will have more resources to invest in education as they progress in development (thus development affects education). According to functionist theorists, the twentieth century's rapidly changing technology created a demand for a more educated labour force. Schooling expansion can be seen as a direct response to technological changes. Furthermore, the need for a more skilled labour force would encourage the government to invest more in education to keep the economy competitive in today's global economy. 

As a result, the relationship between education and development is best understood as covariational. In this case, I assume that education and development are related in the early stages of development. My research will look into the net impact of early-stage education on later stages of socioeconomic development after controlling for early-stage development and other important intervening variables. There are three major theories that address the impact of education on development (modernization, human capital, and world-system).

Modernization

Modernization is a social and economic structure transformation. Modernization is defined as "the process of social change in which development is the economic component" by the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1868). (p. 387). From a comparative standpoint, modernization can be defined as the process by which less developed countries acquire characteristics shared by more developed countries. According to Lasswell (1965), modernization not only affects economic factors but also all social values such as power, respect, rectitude, affection, well-being, skill, and enlightenment.

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Modernity shares the following characteristics: (1) a degree of self-sustaining growth in the economy; (2) a measure of public participation in the polity; (3) a diffusion of secular-rational norms in culture; (4) an increase in social mobility; and (5) a corresponding transformation in the modal personality that equips individuals to function effectively in a social order that operates according to the foregoing characteristics.

Modernization theory proponents argue that socioeconomic structure transformations such as mechanisation of agriculture, urbanisation, a mass communication network, demographic transition, the expansion and integration of a national market, and an increase in political participation are required preconditions for long-term economic growth.

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Changes in these social forces, obviously, create new opportunities, incentives, and normative influences that can influence (1) an individual's worldview and (2) his or her behaviour. Another thread of modernization theory emphasises the link between exposure to modern values and socioeconomic development. According to Inkeles and Smith (1975), modern people, as opposed to traditional people, are willing to act on their world rather than accept it fatalistically; have a cosmopolitan rather than a local orientation; recognise the sense of deferring gratification; welcome rather than distrust change; are not constrained by irrational religious or cultural forms; and recognise the value of education. According to modernization theory, education is critical in paving the way for modernization.

Macroeconomic studies have shown that education is positively correlated with overall economic growth, with one year of additional labour force schooling potentially leading to a 9 percent increase in GDP for the first three years of schooling and a yearly 4 percent increase for the next three years. Education has also been found to increase agricultural productivity, even in developing countries. According to the National Research Council (1986), "urbanisation plays a beneficial role in the development process, providing an increasing share of the population with access to relatively high-wage employment, education, health care, and other modern public services."

Human Capital

According to human capital theory, education leads to development by increasing worker efficiency and productivity. Human capital investment is a critical component of achieving long-term sustainable economic growth. According to this viewpoint, "the primary contribution of education to economic growth was to raise the level of cognitive skills possessed by the labour force, thereby improving their marginal productivity." According to the theory, education is a productive investment in society's "stock" of human capital rather than a form of consumption. Human capital investment is at least as profitable as physical capital investment.

Increasing the overall level of education at the national level will increase the stock of human capital, which will have a positive impact on national productivity and economic growth. Individually, education level provides some indication of a person's ability to perform certain duties and adapt to other work situations.

World System

According to world-system and dependency theories, some countries' specialisation in the export of raw materials and lightly processed goods is a major cause of their underdevelopment. Furthermore, world-system/dependency theories contend that the needs and interests of Western capitalism determine the educational pattern in developing countries. Education is viewed as part of the process of keeping peripheral countries underdeveloped. Foreign investment capital, the presence of multinational corporations, a focus on exporting primary products, and reliance on imported technologies and manufactured goods all limit long-term economic development. Education, far from being a key component in development, modernization, self-sufficiency, and so on, is, according to the theory, yet another instrument of enslavement, a means of tightening, rather than loosening, the dependency bond. 

Each of the aforementioned theories approaches the relationship between education and development from a unique perspective. Each theory describes a different aspect of the relationship's dynamics.