Education For Development Or Underdevelopment

While education has traditionally been considered a catalyst of social transformation, there is now a growing awareness that the vertical expansion and spread of education have acutally served to increase the economic distance between divergent groups in society. The essays in this volume examine the extent to which education has led to the domination of many by a few, thereby furthering inequalities and underdevelopment with a special focus on India. Among the issues discussed are: the consequences for colonial policy on education; the paradox of the brain drain; constraints in educating the poor; and the increasing emphasis on privatization in recent times.

How critical is education in the development struggle of a third world country? Responding to popular demands for more accessible education, the Guyanese government instituted numerous educational reforms, hoping to promote economic growth in both the modern and the traditional sectors of the economy. Many in the traditional sector, however, saw education as a means of economic advancement, and sought increasingly to move into higher social strata through employment in the modern sector. Consequently, the civil service and private firms gained an oversupply of personnel, while agriculture and small business suffered, and unemployment increased. The author examines Guyana’s educational system from historical, political, social, and economic perspectives, and draws implications for other developing countries.

How critical is education in the development struggle of a third world country? Responding to popular demands for more accessible education, the Guyanese government instituted numerous educational reforms, hoping to promote economic growth in both the modern and the traditional sectors of the economy. Many in the traditional sector, however, saw education as a means of economic advancement, and sought increasingly to move into higher social strata through employment in the modern sector. Consequently, the civil service and private firms gained an oversupply of personnel, while agriculture and small business suffered, and unemployment increased. The author examines Guyana’s educational system from historical, political, social, and economic perspectives, and draws implications for other developing countries.

Upon its publication in 1989, this was the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of the Latin American School of Development and an invaluable guide to the major Third World contribution to development theory. The four major strands in the work of Latin American Theorists are: structuralism, internal colonialism, marginality and dependency. Exploring all four in detail, and the interconnections between them, Cristobal Kay highlights the developed world’s over-reliance on, and partial knowledge of, dependency theory in its approach to development issues, and analyses the first major challenges to neo-classical and modernisation theories from the Third World.

An analysis of the economic mechanisms that produce wealth in the midst of growing misery.

Contributed articles.

Routledge Library Editions: Development will re-issue works which address economic, political and social aspects of development. Published over more than four decades these books trace the emergence of development as one of the most important contemporary issues and one of the key areas of study for modern social science. The books cover the most important themes within development and include studies of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Authors include Sir Alexander Cairncross, W. Arthur Lewis, Lord Peter Bauer and Cristobal Kay. An extensive collection of previously hard to access or out of print books, this set presents an unrivalled opportunity to build up a wealth of material in the field of development studies, with a particular focus upon economic and political concerns. The volumes in the collection offer both a global overview of the history of development in the twentieth century, and a huge variety of case studies on the development of individual nations.