Education and Growth

Education is of the most addressed issues in the world after poverty and health care. The professor brought up concerns about the usefulness of education and whether increase in education actually significantly contributes to a countries growth. Other topics that we addressed were the affects of cost of education on secondary schooling enrollment and how the availability of employment affects the demand for education.

What I believe is a great approach to increasing the literacy rate of a country is by lessening schools costs or even providing free education, an incentive for education such as guaranteed employment within the first year of graduation, and a bigger incentive such as free healthcare for forever or at least the first of year 5 of employment. Using my rural Burmese family for an example, the children were not encouraged or expected to attend school because deciding to spend their day to day savings on something that they were not sure would guarantee them a better future ahead was to big of a risk to make. Although it may be difficult to relate to, it is very understandable to make such as decision for a poor rural family in Burma. It is very difficult and very risky for a family to make such as decision which is why I believe that the government is responsible for generating popularity for education. When a family knows what they are making an investment towards and the reward that may come after than they more likely to understand the importance of education. This long term investment not only benefits the income of an individual or a family but also the economy and growth of a country as a whole.

Education can benefit a country in a number of ways such as by helping decrease disease by increasing awareness, end early child marriages, decrease teen pregnancies, decrease crime, and even increase the over all health of a country.