Redressing inequities and under-provision in the formal education system is of vital importance, both for achieving a more equitable allocation of jobs in the formal sector for women and other disadvantaged groups and, more widely, for sustained poverty reduction. However, the provision of reasonable quality free primary education will, on its own, not be sufficient to realise these objectives. Unless there are strong economic incentives for poor parents to send their children to school, the relatively high indirect (opportunity) costs of formal schooling will keep many children out of school.
Not only are private (i.e. individual and household) rates of return to primary education much lower than has been widely claimed, but the demand for primary education in many of the poorest developing countries has been falling over the last decade (see Bennell, 1996, Appleton, 1995). Economic crisis has tended to increase the opportunity costs of education (especially among the poorest households), but improvements in the productivity of smallholder agriculture and microenterprises have remained relatively limited. Because the potential benefits of primary education (at least as far as production is concerned) are only likely to be fully reaped in "modernising" environments, it is essential, therefore, that appropriate training is provided to those who are already in employment. While this argument has been fully accepted with respect to smallholder agriculture, for the many reasons discussed earlier, it has yet to be taken on board by policymakers and donors with respect to non-farm activities.
Government support for skills development for the mass of the poor who live and work in the rural and urban informal sector should, therefore, be regarded as a basic social service. It is clear that acute resource constraints will seriously hinder many governments from being able to fund the large training programmes that are needed and primary education will continue to be given top priority. However, explicit recognition of this role of training in poverty reduction strategies is of crucial importance. In particular, government policy and resources need to be increasingly focused on supporting enterprise development in the informal sector. This is a long-term strategy and community-based organisations and other NGOs will have to take the lead in implementing these programmes in many countries. Strengthening the institutional capacity of all the public and private organisations involved should be a major goal of the training system as a whole (see below).
EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PAPERS 43 Learning to change: Skills development among the economically vulnerable and socially excluded in developing countries Paul Bennell Employment and Training Department International Labour Office Geneva First published 1999
To learn more about this author, visit International Labour Organization's Website.
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