رشد اقتصادی در کشورهای در حال توسعه: نقش سرمایه انسانی

The focus on human capital as a driver of economic growth for developing countries has led to undue attention on school attainment. Developing countries have made considerable progress in closing the gap with developed countries in terms of school attainment, but recent research has underscored the importance of cognitive skills for economic growth. This result shifts attention to issues of school quality, and there developing countries have been much less successful in closing the gaps with developed countries. Without improving school quality, developing countries will find it difficult to improve their long run economic performance.

Much of the motivation for human capital policies in developing countries is the possibility of providing economic growth that will raise the levels of incomes in these countries. The focus on alleviating poverty in developing countries relates directly to economic growth because of the realization that simply redistributing incomes and resources will not lead to long run solutions to poverty. The direct analysis of growth in developing countries adds a much more specific focus than has existed in much of the current policy discussions. Differences in economic growth across countries are closely related to cognitive skills as measured by achievement on international assessments of mathematics and science. In fact, once cognitive skills are incorporated into empirical growth models, school attainment has no independent impact on growth. The general focus on universal school attainment underlying the campaigns of Education for All and Millennium Development Goals, while seemingly reasonable and important, have not put the developing countries in a good position for growth. Specifically, while emphasizing school attainment – a readily available quantitative measure – they have not ensured that the quality of schools has had a commensurate improvement. The data on improvements in school attainment has been impressive, but the very large gaps in achievement lead to a different interpretation of progress. In terms of cognitive skills, little closing of the gaps between developed and developing countries has occurred.21 A surprisingly large proportion of students completing nine years of schooling is uncompetitive in terms of international skill levels. A focus on quality does, however, complicate decision making. It appears to be generally easier to understand how to expand access than to improve quality. Simple approaches to improving quality have not proved very effective. Past research has indicated that just providing more resources to schools is generally ineffective.22 Political problems may also accompany an emphasis on quality. For any given amount of funds, if resources are focused on a smaller set of schools in order to improve quality, it implies that less access to schooling can be provided. Certainly, in order to provide quality schooling, there must be both infrastructure and access. However, the evidence from the growth analysis indicates that providing schools that fail to teach basic skills does no good. Therefore, slowing the pace of the provision of schools to a rate that also permits the development of quality schools appears to be a good solution. One other element enters into the calculations. The rapid expansion of new digital technologies – both as blended learning with teachers and technology and as standalone approaches – suggests that many of the past decisions both on access and on quality might rapidly change.23 The potential in developing countries appears especially large.