Schooling Education And 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.

Study of problems of educational policy and educational planning in developing countries, with particular reference to India - covers primary education, secondary education, higher education, technical education, input output relationships in education and economic implications thereof, etc., and includes a chapter on compulsory education in the UK and on the role of UK experience as an example for other countries. Bibliography pp. 418 to 422, and statistical tables.

Makes specific reference to Cameroon, Malawi and Zaire.

A positive contribution of formal education to development has become widely accepted and rarely questioned. Schooling has been generally assumed as a producer of creativity and therefore a causal factor for economic and social change. Employers have regarded schooling as providing skills, preparing youth for economic functions in an increasing complex technological society, including socializing them to fit into new models of economic organisations, thus helping them into higher incomes and status - a step forward in a success-oriented economy. This study examines the correlation between the formal educational system and development in Ghana, and comes to the conclusion that the widespread hypothesis that expanding schooling in itself increases social welfare which results in national economic growth is still to be questioned.