Slender Agenda
Member
- Aug 26, 2014
- 57
- 45
Lebron is great for spending $41 million to send 1,100 kids to college. My problem is that it costs $41 million to send 1,100 kids to college. -@stevebenko (twitter).
Anyone else notice how expensive education is getting? After reading this tweet last week I found myself thinking, why is education so expensive? By the time I get to have children, sending them to school will probably cost an arm, a leg and possibly the bottom of my left lung.
This realization that I may not be able to take my hypothetical children to school got me thinking, do my children even need formal education to become successful? To escape poverty? Is our solution as a way out of poverty as a country formal education? Is that the way to end up as a developed country? Do we really need formal education as a people, are we unable to beat poverty without this formal education?
Quotes such as education is the key to success have in our minds got us to think that education is a means of poverty reduction without us questioning the circumstances and or challenges that are faced by people in poor areas when this formal education is brought to them. In Tanzania we face challenges such as lack of infrastructure in rural schools, shortages of teachers and books and a lack of electricity.
Yet with all this we expect that advocating for formal education in rural areas is our way out of poverty. We think that the poor farmer in a village somewhere would rather send his child to school and invest in him for over ten years as opposed to sending him to sell their produce in the market and making money in the present.
Economists have what they refer to as the human capital approach that is, The stock of skills and productive knowledge embodied in people. According to this theory, investment in education leads to formation of human capital, which is an important factor of economic growth. Education together with training imparts skills and productive knowledge and transforms human beings into a more valuable human capital.
Basically through education people are worth more because as a result of being equipped with skills that they can readily trade for their wages. What bothers me about this theory, and economists in general is that their theories are always based on numbers and hypothetical situations as opposed to sociological realities. Young people in this country have degrees and are graduating by the numbers, but where are the jobs? Where are these jobs that will turn these young people into valuable human capital and magically improve our economy and make us all richer?
Anyone else notice how expensive education is getting? After reading this tweet last week I found myself thinking, why is education so expensive? By the time I get to have children, sending them to school will probably cost an arm, a leg and possibly the bottom of my left lung.
This realization that I may not be able to take my hypothetical children to school got me thinking, do my children even need formal education to become successful? To escape poverty? Is our solution as a way out of poverty as a country formal education? Is that the way to end up as a developed country? Do we really need formal education as a people, are we unable to beat poverty without this formal education?
Quotes such as education is the key to success have in our minds got us to think that education is a means of poverty reduction without us questioning the circumstances and or challenges that are faced by people in poor areas when this formal education is brought to them. In Tanzania we face challenges such as lack of infrastructure in rural schools, shortages of teachers and books and a lack of electricity.
Yet with all this we expect that advocating for formal education in rural areas is our way out of poverty. We think that the poor farmer in a village somewhere would rather send his child to school and invest in him for over ten years as opposed to sending him to sell their produce in the market and making money in the present.
Economists have what they refer to as the human capital approach that is, The stock of skills and productive knowledge embodied in people. According to this theory, investment in education leads to formation of human capital, which is an important factor of economic growth. Education together with training imparts skills and productive knowledge and transforms human beings into a more valuable human capital.
Basically through education people are worth more because as a result of being equipped with skills that they can readily trade for their wages. What bothers me about this theory, and economists in general is that their theories are always based on numbers and hypothetical situations as opposed to sociological realities. Young people in this country have degrees and are graduating by the numbers, but where are the jobs? Where are these jobs that will turn these young people into valuable human capital and magically improve our economy and make us all richer?
