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Is education really the only answer?
2005-07-21 07:07:49
By Nimi Mweta
Countries that have made considerable strides in economic development, and those which haven’t are distinguished by one principal feature : their respective levels of investment in education.
Bureaucrats at the national level and in the United Nations system seem to have agreed about this formulation, which seems to ease discussions on reasons for debt relief, and use of such proceeds.
Education is an all-embracing notion.
In his latest month end broadcast, President Benjamin Mkapa zeroedin on this idea, not saying this is what explains development generally, but isolating it as a key indicator.
This way of doing things is a conceptual trick familiar in the social sciences; a theorician (they are called empiricists) may pretend to offer a ’limited’ explanation for some event or phenomenon.
But in failing to bring up anything else, makes it a total concept.
The reason for this rather muddled form of scientific practice (method of constructing explanations, building a concrete view of why things are what they are) is distinct.
It lies in the fact that the provider (of that idea) has really no interest in other explanations or aspects of a wider explanation, wishes to highlight this factor as all there is that’s worth knowing.
That is what is happening : do we want to develop? Invest in education.
To underline the fact that this idea hasn’t been lost on others, perhaps less exposed to the president’s jet set appearances in a welter of commissions and fora worldwide, a more earthly figure has just underlined it.
The CCM presidential election candidate Jakaya Kikwete zeroed on it with all the candor and solemnity required, for one to notice it is an idea he holds deeply, at heart.
With education, we soon start catching up with Asia.
Increasingly as well, this idea is being echoed in a more distinctive fashion in different fora as well as in the media, suggesting that it is attaining the quality of a popular view, thus, an ’ideology.’
Something acquires that quality when it puts together the thinking, analytical efforts of so many experts and binds platforms of action among scores of others.
If an idea hasn’t attained a high level of acceptance, it isn’t yet an ideology.
Still, widespread acceptance doesn’t of necessity indicate that an idea is true, though it surely suggests that it is a vital aspect of reality.
There are weaknesses in thinking about development as a whole, and debt relief in particular, that push bureaucrats towards a consensus on education, as the single feature of aid money that is most acceptable to their breadth and diversity. Can such fora be depended upon for the right ideas?
If for instance one says ’Asia developed fast because it invested in education,’ and a large number of people clap and adopt this idea as the way forward for Africa, does the latter start looking like Asia?
Was the Asian experience firstly about education, or it was just as fundamentally about other things besides, and perhaps not about education at all?
What role did investing in education have in Asia, or was it investment as such?
As is usual with buzzwords, they come and go depending upon the circumstance, thus we are now in a time for educational emphasis, because we have debt relief to pursue.
And since education is pre-eminently a state-based social facility, at any rate the government can’t shirk from it the way it may renounce selling beer or petrol, it can unite Africa with donors.
To obtain debt relief en masse let education be a fundamental goal.
That bring us to one of the most tricky aspects about ideology, that it unites two quite dissimilar modes of issues in the mind.
The first is a technical question, as to what we really know about development, or why Asia developed fast while Africa stagnated, and in this way the mind (of Africans, that is) might easily be tuned to picking up a critical factor, education.
When people at the World Bank start saying so, it may stick.
The second obviously is a material question, of the fact that we don’t wish to hear about privatisation of not just industries but services; we especially abhor adopting freehold land ownership policies.
If therefore an authoritative voice drops as it were, from heaven, and informs us that development arises from investing in education, how happy shall we to give this idea to the donors, and getting it accepted.
Of the latter, only the likes of George W. Bush and his narrow group of advisers may balk at it; the rest of the world adopts it, fast.
Hence this ideology prepares Africa and the World Bank, during this period of debt relief festivity, for yet another dizzy round of merry go round; no one knows for how long.
But depending upon how fast, or how real, reforms are made on the ground to facilitate the penetration of credit into the economy, the broadening of the money supply, it could soon come unstuck.
How many doctorates do Nigerians hold, between them?
Only the broadening of the money supply, facilitated by credit extension on the basis of active collateral, not just a registered title but one which can easily be surrendered at the same value and with no auxilliary risks, can boost employment.
Tanzania is producing large numbers of diploma holders, graduates, certificate levels and school leavers.
While one forum praises education, another points at the time bomb of graduates and unemployed youths, school leavers flocking to towns, etc. The whole concept is a confused imbroglio.
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