Analyse the effects of education on the developing countries Essay Example for Free

Analyse the effects of education on the developing countries Essay Analyse the effects of education on the developing countries Development is one of the themes of modern society and there are a variety of elements influencing the development. Many countries experience declares that education gradually play a more and more vital role in development. Education policies which depend on the specific national conditions can lead to a different result. Overall, primary education may be a key to promote the influence including population, health and economic growth. Secondary education not only provides some skilled workers to society, but also is the foundation of higher education. When the country tries to develop the high-tech economy and to transform the social structure, the tertiary education will make a necessary and positive effect on its development. In the education system, basic education is the foundation of secondary and tertiary education. But primary education is not only a part of the education system. It is a very important element which impact on the level of mass culture, Social stability, economic development, population growth and public health. These parts and primary education are interrelated and interact on each other. It is an efficient way to develop these together and lead to a steady and rapid development of society by improving basic education. To make it clear we can put it into a chart(see appendix 1). There are 800 million illiterate adults who are very hard to find a high-income job in the earth, although the world develops rapidly. To solve this problem, universal basic education is a prime way. For example through popularize basic education farmers are able to read the instruction of fertilizer and some agriculture machine, which has an obvious effect in increase of agricultural productivity (Brown, 2008). The situation in industry is similar because of the higher efficiency. There is no doubt that mass culture level and economic growth would also get ahead because of this. In this respect, both Bangladesh and Iran can serve as models which have successful adult literacy programs (Brown, 2008). Widening gap between rich and poor is a source of instability of society (Brown, 2008), while primary education is an important way to narrow it. In most instances, especially for those countries whose rich-poor gap is it is enormous, it is a key to improve the living standard of the poor by universal basic education. Education could also decrease the crime rate (Stephen, Linda, 2003). Therefore, the narrower Rich-poor gap can provide a steady social surrounding in order to a better foundation for economic growth. Economic growth also has feedback in education. When government has enough money to invest to the education, the better education surrounding and higher teacher level would surely improve education, and finally reach a benign circulation. It is justification for public spending on education, because it is based on the high social rate of return. The study shows that investment of primary education can bring the highest social rate of return, followed by secondary and tertiary education (Gupta et al,2004) For developing countries, overpopulation is usually regarded as a basic and important problem. The increase of population would Significant bring the decrease of per capita resource, which also brings huge stress on environment and government. To solve this problem, it is a basic way to spread basic education especially for women. If girls accept more education, they would marry later, and have fewer children, which is a win-win-win situation (Plan 2008). Furthermore, they will have a higher expect and more requirements on their children. Meanwhile, they would focus more on their children’s quality instead of quantity. No doubt that this situation has a positive effect on Population quality Education also has a great effect on public health. First point, Use female education as an example, data shows that there is obvious relationship between educational attainment of mothers and mortality rates of under-5 children (Unicef, 2005). They are also more likely to have healthier children (World Bank, 2008). For the adult, once they receive more medical knowledge, the chances of infection by various diseases get significantly lower. For example, the best way to cure disease like AIDS is teach people how to prevent it. Health also has effect on education. In this aspect, Health and poverty usually work together. In poor areas, children usually hungry or ill, so it is hard for them to have a good state to study. Secondary education, linking primary and tertiary, is the easiest to be undervalued. Occasionally people purely regard lower-secondary as the continuance of basic education and upper-secondary as the preparation of higher education, and the effect of secondary education itself is ignored. However, data given by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of Austrian Academy of Sciences shows that secondary education provides a big boost to economic growth in low-income countries. The annual GDP growth  rates in a country with half population in secondary and universal primary (13%) is twice as much as that in one with merely universal primary (6. 5%) (Lutz et al, 2008). Another research suggests the return of secondary education is 18. 2% for men and 17. 0% for woman (Goh Gopinathan, 2008). Education begins to differentiate at secondary level, upper-secondary especially. Usually secondary education is classified into academic secondary and vocational secondary. Academic secondary education is mainly pre-tertiary education and sometimes pre-vocational education. Graduates from academic secondary school are easier to find a ‘white-collar’ job, which is believed to be safe, comfortable and well-paid in Asia (Goh Gopinathan, 2008; Holsinger Cowell, 2000). Students in Asian are fond of academic secondary schooling due to the preference for ‘white-collar’ jobs, but all students are not suitable for academic secondary education. Vocational secondary schooling, which is specifically aimed at job skills, may be more beneficial to other students. Despite of low matriculate quality, many Asian countries seems still successful in vocational secondary education, Singapore for example. Since 1964, Singapore offered vocational secondary education to students who fail in entering academic secondary school. Because of vocational schooling, many of them master some basic skills, become skilled workers and find a job. When Singapore developed labor-intensive industries and were in huge demand for labor in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, vocational secondary schooling provided large quantities of workers for nation. Simultaneously, as the low mark students are matriculated in schools instead of coming into society too early, they are protected from unhealthy practices in society (Holsinger Cowell, 2000). As vocational secondary education help people to find a work, it also decreases unemployment rate. In Africa, a good illustration of success in training programs is Zambia. Most training graduates can be employed in half a year. Unfortunately, in most of Africa where vocational training remains in low quality, graduates from training school still have difficulty in obtaining employment. Namibian for example, five years after graduation, the unemployment rate of graduates is as high as one fourth. That means vocational secondary education is ineffective when it is in poor quality (Kingombe, 2008). Like academic secondary education, vocational secondary education can also be provision for post-secondary education. In Singapore, after four years of vocational secondary education in the Normal Technical (NT) streams, most NT students enter the Institute of Technical Education to receive ‘high-tech’ education since 1992 (Goh Gopinathan, 2008). secondary education provides high return at low cost. Academic secondary education sometimes seems still expensive and indirect to occupation, while vocational secondary education significantly increases the quality of workforce and the employment rate. Many poor countries with a scarcity of educational resource cannot afford to invest higher education. Therefore, secondary education may be the most cost-effective choice (Lutz et al, 2008; Goh Gopinathan, 2008; Holsinger Cowell, 2000). Tertiary education can play a vital role in the country’s development. However, only the appropriate policy of tertiary education can make great positive effect on the development. South Korea is a good case in point. The very important prerequisites whether the policy of the tertiary education is efficient and suitable is basis: average education level; economic level and so on. Before the Korea War (1950-1953), Korea’s industrialism had just started? (Sacad and Shaw, 1990). The military force not only interrupted the industrialism, but also damaged national economic seriously, remaining the fact that Korea’s per capita gross national product (GNP) was even less than that of the poorest countries, such as Sudan. At this circumstance, South Korean government decided to encourage the massive industries and to recover the nation economic (Encyclopedia of the Nations, 2008). To achieve the goal, in the early 1960s, South Korea needed a large number of generally skilled labour? to take part in the industrialism reforming, which was the main reason why the government focused on the development of primary and secondary education in this period of time, which are talked clearly in the last paragraph. Without a solid economic and education foundation, tertiary education can never make an obvious effect on the development. Almost meanwhile, the tertiary education started to grow although the enrolment was far less than that of primary and secondary education. There two reasons why the government didn’t pay too much attention to the tertiary education. First one was the nation’s GDP per was still too low to invest the tertiary education. Second one is that people at that time didn’t receive the universal basic education. Later in the early 1970s the export which focused on light manufacturing and electronic goods accelerated (Kim, 2005), which needed the certain skilled labour. However, the labour who had general education couldn’t match the reality, leading to the result that the government turned to emphasise on the vocational education (Kim, 2005). Developing the tertiary education to produce the adapted labour was urgent. However, because the production didn’t refer to much high-tech, the development of university remained slow while the vocational education greatly expanded. The labour who had received the vocational education helped relieve the talents shortage to support Economic sustainable development effectively. During 1960s-1970s, the nation economic grew rapidly. In mid-1970s-1980s, Korea’s major industry had become heavy and chemical industry and its main export had transformed kinds of like iron industry, shipyard, precision manufacture and so on (Kim, 2005). In this case, the problem of lacking of high-tech talents to support economic was becoming more serious, especially in the engineering and scientific areas. At this circumstance, when the vocational education can not meet the practical needs, the boom of university was inevitable. Hence, the government’s attention and investment in university education increased in the next decade. In addition, the private investment on university education also increased. With the encouraged policy, the universities developed rapidly during 1980s. A study shows, ‘ in the mid-1970s, there were more than 7% of high school graduate who enrolled into the university. Compared to other developed countied, Japan gained the goal in the 1950s, Taiwan in mid-1960s, and the U. S. in the 1930s ‘(Phelps et. Al, 2003; Hayhoe, 1995). It shows that developing the university education is the necessary way for every country which is determined to develop high-tech economic. Some studies point out the technology change which can improve the productivity will make obvious progress or facilitate some new product when the long-term growth is keeping more than 50%. With rapid development of information technology, the economic and social structure is changing day by day. Trade made a active effect in South Koreas export-oriented economy and during 20th century it occurred many problems such as the freedom of the market. When the government noticed the various problems, they realized Korea should become a knowledge-based society and its economic should be the knowledge-based economic. Therefore, university concentrated on the informational technology, such as semiconductor, Information and communication technology, which made a huge progress during this period of time (Kim, 2005). Moreover, computer, cellular phone and memory chip were the major export product, which also showed the transformation of the economic segments. University education plays a more and more important role in the social transformation. The case of South Korea claims that when the general education is already comprehensively done, the appropriate investment and policy on tertiary education will show the effects on the development in an obvious way. The case of South Korea claims that when the general education is already comprehensively done, the appropriate investment and policy on tertiary education will show the effects on the development in an obvious way. In conclusion, primary education fully promotes economy and society in the poorest countries. In slight wealthier countries, secondary education leads to a leap of economy, and paves the way to further promotion. On a solid foundation of primary and secondary education, the developing countries will achieve considerable development with the help of tertiary education. When education is adapted to national conditions, it helps maximum of economic and social development. 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B, Fredrikson, and Birger (ed) Toward a Better Future: Education and Training for Economic Development in Singapore since 1965. The World Bank: 2008. p. 12-38 Holsinger, D. B. Cowell, R. N. (2000) Positioning Secondary School Education in Developing Countries. Paris: December 2000. [Online] Available from: [22 October 2010] Kingombe, C. (2008) ‘Evaluating the Effects of Vocational Training in Africa’. OECD Development Centre Policy Insights. Paris: April 2008. P. 1-3 Encyclopedia of the Nations (2008) Balance of payments Korea, Republic of (ROK) export, growth, power [online]. Available from [8 Dec 2010] S, Kim and Ju-Ho Lee (2004) Changing Facets of Korean Higher Education: Market Competition and the Role of the State* [online] March 2004 Available from : [8 Dec 2010] Bloom, D. Canning, D. Chan, K. (2006) Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa. Washington D. C. Harvard University.