Education's Effects on Individual Life Chances and On Development: An Overview

The Effect of Education Expenditure on Per Capita GDP in Developing Countries

“…For this reason, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) uses education as one of the components of its Human Development Index (HDI). Motivated in part by this observation, findings from several studies focusing on education and national development suggest that education is a key to delivering the knowledge requirements for economic development (McMahon & Oketch 2013;Keller, 2006;Hanushek & kimko, 2000;Schultz, 1999). These studies have shown that sustainable development in any economy depends on the availability of skilled labor force whose contribution to increased labor productivity and long-term economic growth are essential for poverty reduction and longevity.…”

Financing higher education in sub-Saharan Africa: some reflections and implications for sustainable development

“…The idea of positive externalities (McMahon 2009;Keller 2006) is one of them. This is the notion that higher education benefits are captured by those who have not themselves attended higher education, but there are also several other private social benefits such as better own health which were ignored by rate of return estimates (McMahon and Oketch 2013). Critics of the externalities argument claim it does not suggest subsidising students at exactly the same rate (Rosen 1995;Fernandez and Rogerson 1995).…”

Re-inventing Kenya’s university: From a “Graduate-mill” to a development-oriented paradigm

“…Furthermore, they argue that these non-market social benefits may produce "wider social impacts, such as the strengthening of democracy, social cohesion and good governance" that may in turn contribute to growth (p. 14). Delving further into the endogenous model, McMahon and Oketch (2013) are of the view that although some benefits of education may appear private, in the long run, in their totality, these benefits contribute to overall national development (p. 2). They conclude that although indirect benefits of education are "benefits in and of themselves," ultimately they contribute to growth (p. 24).…”

“…This reality calls for the intelligentsia to push for higher education reforms from within that would position universities as catalysts of socio-political change in the country; after all, from an endogenous view, one of the social benefits of higher education is to produce human capital equipped to champion democratic ideals (McMahon and Oketch, 2013), and that includes challenging the status quo. It is this recognition of the role of the intelligentsia in social change that scholars have argued on the need for Kenya's university community to participate in the country's democratization process and entrenchment of good governance (Chege, 2009;Amutabi, 2007;Nasong'o, 2007Amutabi, 2007.…”