The economic cost of failing to educate girls

According to Kofi Annan, former UN secretary general, ‘there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls’. A new report entitled Paying the price: The economic cost of failing to educate girls by Plan International, states that education is vital to the future prospects and development of children across the world. Gaining a good education is at least as important for girls as it is for boys. It is the foundation stone on which future employment prospects and opportunities are built. Those who miss out on education as children often struggle to gain employment as adults. When they do find work, the uneducated typically earn less than their peers. For girls in particular, schooling offers the chance of independence. Girls who are educated are less likely to be exploited, less likely to fall victim to trafficking and less likely to be infected with HIV. Girls’ education also creates a virtuous cycle: women who are educated are more likely to have healthy children of their own. The report, which is based on World Bank research and economic data, as well as UNESCO education statistics, estimates the economic cost to 65 low and middle income and transitional countries of failing to educate girls to the same standard as boys as a staggering US$92b per annum. This is just less than the US$103.7b foreign development aid budget of the OECD group of 22 developed countries in 2007. Countries in South and West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have the worst record on educating girls to secondary level. India alone misses out on potential economic growth worth about US$33b per annum. Other major losers include Turkey (US$20b) and Russia (US$9.8b). Nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa have a gap of 10 percentage points or more between the proportion of girls educated to secondary level and the proportion of boys. Yet, despite this poor record, the region’s total annual growth (US$5.3b) lost is limited by the small size of its economies. The message of the report is clear: investment in girls’ education will deliver real returns, not just for individuals but for the whole society.

Greater access to education key to combating child labour

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are approximately 218m child labourers around the world, of which millions are either denied educational opportunities that would give them a better future or who must balance work with education. More than 70m primary school-age children are not enrolled in school. Many of these and other out-of-school children start working at an early age, often well below the minimum age of employment. And when a family has to make a choice between sending either a boy or a girl to school, it is often the girl who loses out. According to Juan Somavia, director-general of the ILO, ‘our challenge is to offer hope to the child labourers of the world by making their right a reality, ensuring that they have quality education and training which can lead them towards a future of decent work. This is essential to break the cycle of child labour and poverty. And it is a sound investment for individuals and society.’ To tackle child labour, the ILO is urging governments to provide education for all children at least to the minimum age of employment, as well as education policies that reach out to child labourers and other excluded groups.

Education and development

The International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA’s) World Population Programme (POP) recently completed research which, for the first time, scientifically proves the key role of human capital formation in a country’s economic development. It is argued that at the heart of the many problems faced by sub-Saharan Africa are the intertwined challenges of rapid population growth and low human capital (human capital being defined here as people with a certain education and health status). The human drivers of development are made up of this interacting population-education-health triad in every world region. However, in Africa the interactions are particularly important in terms of bringing people out of poverty. According to the research, education is a fundamental determinant not only of health, demographic trends (in particular, fertility), and individual income, but also – and notably – of a country’s aggregate level of economic growth. Four scenarios that roughly resemble alternative hypothetical education policy strategies for a poor African country, illustrate the impact of educational levels on economic growth.

  • Scenario 1 presents the reference case of a country with a young age structure, a low starting level of income and investment rate, and the following educational structure: half of the population with no formal schooling, 40% with some primary education, and 10% with at least completed junior secondary school (but no tertiary) education. Based on the estimated model, such a country would have rather slow economic growth.
  • Scenario 2 considers the otherwise identical country under the hypothetical assumptions that it has been meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2 (ie, achievement of universal primary education) and the previously uneducated half of the adult population now has primary education. This case would lead to somewhat higher average growth of GDP.
  • Scenario 3 considers a possible MDG+ that adds widespread secondary education (it is assumed that 50% of the population achieves at least some secondary schooling) to universal primary education. The model simulations indicate that this additional investment in secondary education provides a huge boost to economic growth, over five times the level of the baseline case and also much more than in the case of the universal primary education alone.
  • Scenario 4 presents another possible direction of improvement from the baseline (which somewhat resembles the case of India) in which half of the population remains without education while 5% have tertiary education, 15% secondary education, and 30% primary education. This case of elitist education in a context where half the population is without schooling clearly does better than the baseline case and even better than the universal primary education case (combined with 10% secondary and no tertiary education); however, it falls far short of the economic growth implied by universal primary education combined with 50% secondary and no tertiary education.

According to the research, the current MDG focus on universal primary education is important but insufficient. It needs to be complemented with the goal of giving broad segments of the population at least a completed junior secondary education. Only this is likely to give initially poor countries the human capital boost that is necessary to bring large segments of the population out of poverty.

Building African scientists

The African Institute for Mathematical Science (Aims) has recently announced its intention to establish 15 Aims centres in Africa over the next five years, with the first centre to be established in Abuja, Nigeria this year. Aims Abuja will be a postgraduate centre for mathematics and computational science, similar to the Aims centre in Cape Town. The centre will have a strong engineering focus, including petroleum engineering, materials science and computational science. According to Prof Neil Turok, founder and chairperson of the Aims board, other centres are planned in Ghana, Madagascar, Sudan, Uganda, Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia and Rwanda, as these countries have ‘good human and natural resources with good prospects of developing into a centre of excellence to the advantage of the local populations, universities and governments’. It is envisaged that three new Aims centres will be opened every year and that each centre will accommodate 50 students, with most proceeding to Master’s and PhD levels at a partnering university. The rationale for such an initiative is to develop African human capacity in the crucial area of maths and science.

New project to alleviate the brain drain in Africa

According to the World Bank, Africa, a continent with a critical shortage of high-level skills, loses approximately 70 000 highly qualified scholars and experts every year mostly to developed countries. Initiatives by individual African countries to stem the outflow of talent have largely failed, forcing Africa to seek ways of harnessing the skills of top-flight academics and professionals who have left. A new project, Piloting solutions for reversing brain drain into brain gain in Africa, initiated by UNESCO and involving Hewlett Packard (HP) as well as universities in five African countries (ie, Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Zimbabwe), ‘aims to establish links between researchers who have stayed in their countries and those that have left, connecting scientists to international colleagues, research networks and potential funding organisations. Faculties and students at beneficiary universities will also be able to work on major corroborative research projects with other universities around the world’. UNESCO is in charge of overall coordination, management, monitoring and evaluation of the initiative, while HP is providing equipment (including servers and grid-enabling technologies) and local human resources to the universities, as well as training and support, until the project becomes self-sustainable. HP will also donate PCs and monitors, and fund research visits abroad and meetings between beneficiary universities.

African teachers living positively with HIV

An estimated 122 000 teachers in sub-Saharan Africa living with HIV/AIDS have been given a voice in a collaborative project by the World Bank and African Ministries of Education networks of HIV/AIDS focal points. The output is a book entitled Courage and hope: Stories from teachers living with HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa that has been turned into a documentary film produced by Partnership for Child Development with support by the World Bank. In the film, Courage and hope: African teachers living positively with HIV which was launched at the International AIDS Conference held in Mexico, the voices of four courageous teachers detail the challenges they face once their HIV-positive status becomes known. These range from stigmatisation to shunning and discrimination against them and their families.
Despite the hurdles the teachers face, they are confident that with effective care, support and antiretroviral drugs, they are able to live and to enjoy full and healthy lives. The personal reflections of these teachers offer courage and hope to the thousands of HIV-positive teachers in sub-Saharan Africa, of whom the majority are unaware of their status and who very often are reluctant to undergo HIV testing for fear of the consequences of a positive test outcome.

Learner retention in the South African schooling system

In April 2007 the minister of education, Naledi Pandor, appointed the Ministerial Committee on Learner Retention in the South African Schooling System to conduct an investigation into the extent of retention and dropout in the schooling system. Having reviewed existing data, information and research, the investigation concluded that there is sufficient evidence to state that:

  • There is a problem of learner retention, which is more pronounced after Grade 9. The dropout rate below Grade 9 is statistically insignificant, but increases sharply from Grades 10 to 12.
  • A proportion of learners starting Grade 9 are not in a position to finish secondary school, and that the system does not provide sufficient alternatives. * As a consequence, there is a high failure rate, repetition and dropout in Grades 10-12, which is a waste of many years of learning. Urgent attention should be given to providing suitable alternative Further Education and Training (FET) programmes which include a focus on both content and mode of delivery.
  • There is no evidence of anomalies between Grade 1 and Grade 2 that point toward dropping-out. In fact, as can be seen in the survival rates by grade, the flow between the two grades is just below 100%. A problem that seems to plague Grade 1 is high repetition of the grade, a phenomenon which is not peculiar to South Africa.
  • However, retention is improving, as are levels of education attainment, with younger age groups having a better chance of progressing to secondary school grades than the older age groups.
  • South Africa compares favourably with other developing countries on progression rates, enrolment rates and levels of education attainment.

Learner retention, as measured by survival rate estimates, indicates an improving trend in general education since 1970.

  • Learner retention at FET level indicates that the percentage of learners with Grade 9 reaching Grade 12 tends to remain almost static over the years. The estimates indicate a static progression pattern within further education among learners entering this phase with slightly less than 90% of those with Grade 9 reaching Grade 10. About three-quarters reach Grade 11 and just below 60% reach Grade 12.
  • Dropout rates, measured at the end of each grade per birth cohort, indicate fairly high flows until Grade 9. Essentially, the dropout rate is minimal for at least the first 8 years of schooling. The dropout rates increase sharply from Grade 9 onwards.
  • As a result of rising educational attainment, the proportion of the population reaching certain educational milestones has risen significantly.

HSRC pilot study into roots of bad mathematical performance

South African students score poorly in mathematics and language tests when compared with students from other African countries and when compared with what would be expected 14 years after the achievement of democracy. As a first step toward unpacking the factors contributing to low levels of learning in South African schools, the HSRC recently engaged in a small-scale empirical pilot study that focuses on the role that teacher skills and practice play in South African students’ learning within the socioeconomic and administrative conditions in those schools. The pilot study was conducted on a sample of Grade 6 mathematics lessons in 40 primary schools in Gauteng. The data revealed a primary school system characterised both by well-known low average levels of learner and teacher mathematical knowledge and by considerable inequality in the distribution of mathematical knowledge among those who teach students of lower and higher socioeconomic background. Not surprisingly, results showed a high correlation between the average socioeconomic level of students in the school, the total mathematical content knowledge of teachers and the average students’ mathematics test score in the school. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge emerged as a critical issue in low achievement. It refers to the application of mathematical knowledge for teaching, especially to young children.

SA to spend R6b to halve illiteracy by 2012

According to the deputy minister of education, Enver Surty, over 9m people in South Africa are illiterate or functionally illiterate. The department of education is spending R6.1b over a five-year period to halve illiteracy by 2012 through its Kha Ri Gude (Let us Learn) mass literacy campaign. To date, 360 000 learners have been enrolled, with 24 000 volunteer educators, 2 800 supervisors and 150 coordinators involved. The target is to enroll 1.2m people in 2009.

Higher education receives an additional R247m

The higher education sector has received an additional R246.9m to improve access and quality to education for the 2008/09 financial year. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme was allocated R11.2m, while the FET college sector has been allocated a conditional grant of R795m.

Education Trends is compiled by the Institute for Futures Research.

This Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License


Back to top