Education Contributes Greatly to Kenya’s Economic Development. Discuss with Clear Illustrations.

Education is widely accepted as a leading instrument for promoting economic growth. For Kenya, where growth is essential if the country is to climb out of poverty, education is particularly important. Fundamentally, it is both a result and a determinant of income, and can produce public and private benefits. Additionally, it may create greater tax revenue, increase savings and investment, and lead to a more entrepreneurial and civic society. Besides improving a nation’s health, education contributes to reduced population growth, improves technology, and strengthens governance. With regard to the benefits of education for a country’s economy, many observers attribute India’s leap onto the world economic stage as stemming from its decades-long successful efforts to provide high-quality and technically oriented education to a significant number of its citizens. This paper reviews how education contributes to Kenya’s economic development.

The development of human capital in Kenya can also be considered to have been contributed to by education. Educating families plays a critical role in improving human capital. Families make a variety of decisions. One is whether to have many children or to have fewer children. Also some try to do more for each child. As Kenya develops, the trend shifts very strongly toward the latter. Every nation that has developed has done that, some in remarkably short periods of time. This is related with the level of education level of families. On average, educated families, particularly educated women, have 1.4 children and uneducated families have 5.1 children in the eastern region of Kenya (Becker, 2008). Thus, in order to reduce the birth rate and inequalities between these regions in the country, more importance has to be given to education. Greater education of parents, perhaps of mothers, tends to improve the treatment of children, especially the daughters. The gap between the education of sons and daughters is smaller when parents are more educated.

More educated men and women tend to invest more in their own health and the health of their children. Indeed, education may be the single most important personal determinant of a person’s health and life expectancy. The educated persons in the country are the least likely to smoke. Smoking trends found in significant numbers only among those with no college education, and is especially common among high school dropouts. The educated persons in Turkey are mostly working most of the time. The uneducated people not in work usually sit in cafes and waste their times. Many of them smoke.

Education of the poor helps improve their food intake not only by raising their incomes and spending on food but also by inducing them to make better, healthier, choices. All the studies from different nations indicate that educated persons tend to consume a healthier diet even when the total amount spent on food is held constant. Of course, the relation

between education and better health and life expectancy involves causation in both directions, for greater health and lower mortality also induce larger investments in education and other human capital since rates of return on these investments are greater when the expected amount of working time is greater.

Education increases earnings and productivity of Kenya in different ways. Generally, educated persons earn more than the less educated individuals. Capital interpretation of the education-earnings relationship as reflecting the productivity enhancing effect of education is perceived more in terms of acquisition of basic cognitive skills. Educated persons acquire multiple skills with which they use to produce more. Further, there is evidence that primary education enhances agricultural productivity, especially under conditions of technological and institutional innovation. Empirical studies in the North rift have showed that farmers with primary education are more productive than their counterparts. They sue this knowledge to operate machinery and effectively use farm input such as chemicals and fertilizer. With this knowledge, they are able to liaise effectively with Agricultural officers to boost production.

Education also enables the public to have access to credit. In most instances, educated persons tend to have knowledge regarding forms of credit and how to access them. This has enabled farmers in central Kenya to get capital with which they use to enhance productivity. The rise of financial institutions such as Kenya Women Finance Trust, Faulu Kenya and Equity Bank has enhances accessibility to such credit. This boosts economic production as farmers use the financial resources to establish viable projects.

Another major contribution of education to economic growth in Kenya pertains to the reduction of poverty and inequality. Research shows that countries that have grown fastest have also achieved the most poverty reduction, while those that stagnated economically experienced the greatest growth in poverty. However, economic growth is all the more powerful in reducing poverty when coupled with good policies for human capital development, which promote mo re equal income distribution. From a policy perspective, this means placing more stress on investments in people through providing access to education, health, social protection, and more direct participation in decisions affecting them. Statistical evidence shows that improved access to education in Kenya has contributed to reduced poverty.

With primary education only, farmers on a national level have improved production. They engage more in economic production a opposed to idling. Emergent research has also confirmed this possibility, pointing out how income distribution is affected by educational expansion, with rapid expansion of basic education helping to reduce inequality. In Kenya a recent report argues that the well known Kuznets curve of rising inequality in the early stages of rapid economic development need not apply to all situations. According to this report, rapid education expansion under the right conditions can lead to rapid economic growth and less inequality than would be implied by the Kuznets curve. If expansion would proceed to the point of achieving UPE, then all primary age children would then receive the “option” value of primary education (the value of the chance to compete for places higher up in the education system). At least chances for secondary and higher education would be more expanded.

From a social point of view, education contributes to social cohesion and harmonic living. The idea that social cohesion can help reduce social conflicts and reduce poverty has been taken up in recent years. Research views conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction as critical to its mission of poverty reduction in the past 15 years. The real question is whether educating children about social cohesion can actually help prevent social conflict. Education can reduce poverty and social injustice by providing the underprivileged resources and opportunities for upward social mobility and social inclusion. Yet, until the National Education Policy (NEP) 2009 was unveiled, the budgetary allocation for education in Pakistan was on the decline.

The economies of low-and middle-income countries have been growing at historically rapid rates. Progress in education-expanded enrolments and longer schooling-has contributed to this growth and so has helped to reduce poverty in developing countries. In 1990 a typical six year- old child in Kenya was expected to attend school for 8.5 years, up from 7.6 years in 1980. Yet despite these substantial achievements in Kenya major challenges remain: these are to increase access to education in some provinces, to improve equity, to improve quality, and, where needed, to speed educational reform. The issue of equity mainly affects several overlapping disadvantaged groups, including the

poor, linguistic, and ethnic minorities, nomads, refugees, and street and working children. The different access that boys and girls have to the education system in some parts of the country is also very important because it contributes to gender differences later in life. The gender gap in expected years of schooling in now very small in most countries in Students in Kenya have a mean level of achievement below that in industrial countries, and their performance shows a much greater variation around the mean.

The development of human capital in Kenya can also be considered to have been contributed to by education. Educating families plays a critical role in improving human capital. Families make a variety of decisions. One is whether to have many children or to have fewer children. Also some try to do more for each child. As Kenya develops, the trend shifts very strongly toward the latter. Every nation that has developed has done that, some in remarkably short periods of time. This is related with the level of education level of families. On average, educated families, particularly educated women, have 1.4 children and uneducated families have 5.1 children in the eastern region of Kenya (Becker, 2008). Thus, in order to reduce the birth rate and inequalities between these regions in the country, more importance has to be given to education. Greater education of parents, perhaps of mothers, tends to improve the treatment of children, especially the daughters. The gap between the education of sons and daughters is smaller when parents are more educated.

More educated men and women tend to invest more in their own health and the health of their children. Indeed, education may be the single most important personal determinant of a person’s health and life expectancy. The educated persons in the country are the least likely to smoke. Smoking trends found in significant numbers only among those with no college education, and is especially common among high school dropouts. The educated persons in Turkey are mostly working most of the time. The uneducated people not in work usually sit in cafes and waste their times. Many of them smoke.

Education of the poor helps improve their food intake not only by raising their incomes and spending on food but also by inducing them to make better, healthier, choices. All the studies from different nations indicate that educated persons tend to consume a healthier diet even when the total amount spent on food is held constant. Of course, the relation

between education and better health and life expectancy involves causation in both directions, for greater health and lower mortality also induce larger investments in education and other human capital since rates of return on these investments are greater when the expected amount of working time is greater.

References

Ainsworth, B. (1995). The Impact of Female Schooling on Fertility and Contraceptive, LSMS Working Papers 110. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Becker, S. (1998). Human Capital. New York: Colombia University Press.

Becker, S. (2008). Human Capital and Poverty, Religion and Liberty Archive. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Dension, E.F. (1992).Sources of Economic Growth in the United States and alternative

Before Us. New York: Committee for Economic development.

Schultz, T.W. (2001), “Investment in human Capital”, American Economic Review, 51(1).