Education and Economic Development

Education is now an integral part of any kind of development. Today no one can think of socio-economic development without having an abundance supply of highly educated and skilled people. Every country must have an adequate number of qualified scientists, technologies and techniques, Highly qualified workers lead to high productivity of labours and income not only their own earning but also the social product and consequently the national income.

Realizing the role of education, in economic development, Alfred Marshall termed education as a national investment. This is clearly emphasized by NPE, 1986. Education influence economic development in two ways:-

1. By adequately equipping the human resources with necessary knowledge, skills, attitude and values according to the demand of the economy.

2, By generating knowledge theories and technologies to enhance productivity and management in all sectors of the economy.

Education is the pre-requisite for human resource development. Different sectors of an economy now require skilled and knowledgeable manpower. Education can enable people to be gainfully employed and ensure social and economic vertical mobility. It trains people for specialized roles, it equips people to adopt to the changes social, technological, economic and political set-up.

The technological revolution has created the need for scientist, technologists and technicians for a progressive country. The supply whom has to be ensured through the expansion of education. Education not only produces technologies but technologically and scientifically literate persons.

The impact of education of economic growth is easily discernable in case of the developed countries. In the countries like USA, UK, Russia, Denmark etc. the high rates of economic growth were coupled with high rates of expenditure on education. Education increases productivity. Israel is a good example for educational investment providing high returning. Today, India is also a powerful and vibrant economy of the world. This has been possible because of widespread education which is being reviewed and revised periodically. The self-reliance in terms of agriculture, technology and expertise in large number of areas has taken India to a powerful position. this has been possible because of widespread educational facilities like-

1. Education for employability.

2. Quality of life as an outcome of education.

3. education as human resource development.

Nature of Education for Economic Development

Education for economic development basically deals with generating human resources for briefly about improvement and economic well-being and quality of life. It equips the human resources with necessary knowledge, skill, attitude and values in accordance with the demand of the economy,.

The subject also deals with generating knowledge, theories, and technologies to enhance productivity and management in all sectors of the economy.

A good system of education is a must for all round economic development. A nation develops when the development of its human resources runs parallel to the development of its economic resources.

Education for economic development gives the ways for bringing about economic development in the following ways:-

1. Training and developing skills required for efficient and more production.

2. Training for vocations (career education or technical education).

3. Inculcating values, beliefs and modes of behaviour required for fulfilling one’s role in the country’s development.

4. Application of knowledge.

As such education for economic development incorporates science as a basic adequate emphasis on vocational education. It always intends to improve scientific and technological education.

Education as an Investment

Education is considered as an investment in human capital. Human capital can be described as the knowledge, abilities and skills of an individual, acquired through education, training and experience, which help the later to be more productive and thus improve his emphasized that, by investing in human beings, we will gain from some forms of benefits in the future.

Human capital is one of the most important component of sustainable economic development of a country. Since education improves human capital, We could say that education does affect economic growth predominantly, but actually, the impact of education on economic development is quite ambiguous. There were countless debates over the years by researchers over whether education has a positive, negative or no relationship at all with the economic growth of a country. Barro (1991) finds that education has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. He observes that any rise in enrolment rate, rises GDP too. Rochet (1996) finds that this relationship may not always be true. Devanjan (1990)0 also finds that education has a negative impact on economic growth for some developing countries.

They deduce that developing countries are not productive at the margin because these countries do not fairly allocate their public capital expenditure and this explains the opposing relationship between education and economic growth.