SAGA Proposal: Education

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SAGA Research Proposal:

1.2.1 Education

Improvements in education are a key element in the reduction of poverty whether it is defined in terms of incomes, capabilities, or vulnerabilities. From the perspective of income poverty, there is an enormous body of research confirming that education increases labor incomes (Psacharopoulos 1994). In Africa, this is true not only in the formal wage sector, but also in agriculture and the informal sector where Africa’s poor are primarily engaged (Schultz 1975; Vijverberg 1995; Glick and Sahn 1997). Education is also a leading determinant of rural households' capacity to enter into remunerative nonfarm employment in Africa (Dercon and Krishnan 1996; Barrett, Bezuneh, and Aboud 2001; Barrett, Reardon and Webb 2001). Because there is a positive relationship between nonfarm income and household welfare indicators across most of rural Africa (Reardon 1997), greater nonfarm income diversification reduces households' vulnerability, allowing more rapid growth in earnings and consumption (Block and Webb 2001; Barrett, Bezuneh, and Aboud 2001). Improved access to education can thus help poorer populations access a positive feedback loop wherein those participating in the rural nonfarm economy enjoy faster income growth, thereby providing the resources to plow back into expanded nonfarm activity that diversifies incomes (Barrett, Reardon and Webb 2001; Barrett, Place and Aboud, forthcoming).

In terms of capabilities, education produces important capabilities such as literacy and numeracy. From the perspective of vulnerability, recent research has found that more educated households are better able to deal with income and policy shocks, and thus less vulnerable than less educated households (Grootaert, Kanbur, and Oh,1997; Glewwe and Hall 1998; Barrett, Sherlund and Adesina 2001). More education also equips families and individuals to cope with adverse health shocks such as a sudden illness. In addition, public health education, such as teaching parents the basics of oral rehydration or explaining the risks associated with alternative infant feeding options to HIV-positive mothers, will help diminish the consequences of adverse health shocks. Finally, more educated people have greater political voice (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000).

Given the universal importance of education, it is sobering to observe that school enrolments are lower in Africa than in other regions of the world, even after controlling for income level (Schultz 1999). Further, unlike other developing countries, enrolment rates have at best stagnated in Africa in the last two decades (UNESCO 1998). Clearly, better understanding of the constraints that keep African children out of school is a critical question for an empowering growth development strategy. This is especially true for girls, whose post-primary enrolments continue to lag those of boys in Africa, a problem that has important long-term consequences because women tend to have stronger preferences for investing in their children’s education than their spouses, and also have may have stronger preferences for educating their daughters (Glick and Sahn 2000). If solutions could be found to increase enrolment rates to, say, the levels found in Viet Nam today, or the East Asian Tigers in the 1960s, the benefits would have a considerable impact on the macroeconomic performance of African economies.

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