Education and Basic Human Needs World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 450 April 1981 .0 Prepared by: Abdun Noor Education Department Central Projects Staff .0 Copyright 2~ 1981 The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A. The views and interpretations in this document are those of the aLuthor and should not be attributed to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations, or to any individual acting in their behalf. ,4) The views and interpretations in this document are those of the author and should not be attributed to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations, or to any individual acting in their behalf. WORLD BANK Staff Working Paper No. 450 April 1981 EDUCATION AND BASIC HUMAN NEEDS The potential benefits of education as a consumption good and source of pleasure cannot be separated from its utility in transmitting the skills necessary to help people meet their basic needs, such as health, adequate nutrition, safe drinking water, and housing, and for raising income. This paper conceptualizes basic education and examinies its ability to deliver benefits, particularly to the poor. The three learning elements-- skills to communicate, skills to improve the quality of life, and skills for production--which are acquired over a lifetime, could lead to material welfare, increased productivity, and competence to earn a living from self-employment. The paper suggests that the main obstacle to the expansion of such basic education is not its economic cost but the desire of the elite to keep their privileges, which are apt to be reinforced by existing administrative and social structures. To universalize basic education by the year 2000, the choice of a particular method, technique, structure, and technology should be based on the unique configuration of each country's socioeconomic circumstances and stage of development. On the basis of the analysis of strategies that each of the four major groups of countries could consider, the paper concludes that the package of policy choices that make up the strategy for each country is unique. Prepared by: Abdun Noor Copyright 1981 Education Department The World Bank Central Projects Staff 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433 U.S.A. PREFACE Preparation of this paper began in late 1978, as an input to the Bankwide work program on meeting basic needs, coordinated by the Policy Planning and Program Review Department (PPR). Some of the ideas on basic needs and for basic education were subsequently incorporated in the 1980 Education Sector Policy Paper. The state of the art in the conceptualization of basic education, and its relationship with meeting basic human needs, is not yet fully developed. It is my hope that the present working paper will stimulate further discussions, and will help in refining our approach toward meeting the goals of basic education. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the helpful suggestions I have received during the various stages of drafting this paper from Aklilu Habte, Mahbub ul Haq, Mats Hultin, Najma Noor, Selcuk Ozgediz, and Rachel Weaving. James McEuen edited the final manuscript for publication, and TiaJuana Rountree typed several drafts. The views and interpretations, however, are solely my responsibility, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank. EDUCATION AND BASIC HUMAN NEEDS Table of Contents Page SUMMARY ANID CONCLUSIONS ............................... i Section I UNIVERSALIZING BASIC EDUCATION TO M4EET BASIC HUMAN NEEDS 1 Why Universalize Education? ........................... ...2 Limits of Organized Edacation ....................... 4 Basic Education in Response to Basic Needs ............S9 Conceptualizing Policy and the Means of Delivery 11 For communication skills .......................... 11 Primary education ........................... 12 Adult literacy training ...................... 13 For life skills ................................... 15 Personal contact and group discussion with field workers ......................... 15 Radio ........................................... 16 Folk media ................................... 17 For production skills ............................ 17 Section II ISSUES AND OBSTACLES IMPLICIT IN A POLICY OF UNIVERSALIZATION .....................................20 Affordability ......................................... 20 Financial commitment ........................o.. 21 Estimating global costs ......... ... ....... 22 Cost-Reducing Measures ............................. 26 Redistribution of existing resources .............. 26 Reliance on community-financed education .......... 27 Reliance on local resources ........................ 28 Cost-effective programs .......................... .28 Tapping Organizational and Human Resources ............. 29 Participatory community organizations ............. 29 Institutions of higher learning ..................... 31 Groups in the private sector ........................ 32 Potential basic educators .......................... 32 Table of Contents cont'd Page Reaching Complex Managerial Decisions ....................... 34 Overcoming Sociopolitical and Administrative Realities 36 The party in power .............................. 37 Administrative realities ................................ 37 Cultural realities ..................................... 38 Overall basic education and the reality of underdevelopment .............................. 38 Section III STEPS TOWARD IMPLEMENTING A POLICY FOR UNIVERSALIZING BASIC EDUCATION ............................................ 40 Elements of a Policy Package .. ............... 40 Elements of a Strategy ................................ 46 For countries with relatively low educational level and low per capita income (for example, Sahelian countries) ............................. 47 Role of external agencies .......................... 49 For countries with relatively low educational level but high per capita income (for example, countries in the Middle East) ...................... 50. Role of external agencies .......................... 51 For countries with relatively high educational level but low per capita income (for example, countries in South Asia) .......................... 52 Role of external agencies ........................ 53 For countries with relatively high educational level and high per capita income (for example, countries in East Asia and Latin America) ...... 54 Role of external agencies .............................. 55 Programs that Prefer the Poor ............................... 55 ANNEX 1 DERIVATION OF COST EXTIMATES FOR MEETING BASIC EDUCATIONAL NEEDS OF THOSE IN ABSOLUTE POVERTY 58 ANNEX 2 CHANGING DIRECTIONS IN EDUCATIONAL LENDING ............. 61 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The potential benefits of education as a consumption good and source of pleasure cannot be separated from its utility in transmitting the skills necessary to help people meet their basic needs, for health, adequate nutrition, safe drinking water and housing, and for raising income. The number of people without formal schooling is enormous. About 850 million people in the developing world have had little or no opportunity to receive even rudimentary schooling. For each of the 315 million people presently enrolled in school, there are three people who have had no education and for whom new educational provision needs to be made. lost of them are among the 770 million absolute poor. This paper examines the prospects of satisfying basic needs for education in the light of: the limited resources available for education relative to the demands which are placed upon them; the common tendency of the poor to remain outside the formal educational system; and mounting criticism of formal education, on grounds that it uses resources inefficiently and that its content is irrelevant to the lifestyles and economic prospects of many of those who receive it. The concept of basic education expands the traditional view of an educational system and its functions. It comprises planned activities in formal, nonformal, and informal education. Its different elements are acquired over a lifetime and can lead to material welfare, increased productivity, and the ability to earn a living from self-employment. It has three essential objectives: skills to communicate, skills to improve the quality of life, and skills for production. The character, amount, and method of basic education differ according to the country and the target group, whether children in school, children not in school., youth and adults and their particular needs. Obviously planning for basic education is more demanding than planning for traditional education. It implies planning and management of institutions to integrate the use of learning resources across different sectors, to allocate educational functions to the agencies best suited to carry them out, to establish linkages and leadership of educational activities at the lowest level, to foster motivation, and to increase beneficiaries' participation in articulating their needs and managing their programs. - ii - The first component of basic education is communication skills. Primary education is the main instrument because investments in school- age children benefit society over a long period; it is also the main method of literacy training because more is known about how to improve its relevance, availability, and efficiency than about nonformal and informal education. Literacy campaigns (including numeracy), the other main means of teaching communication skills, have mostly been uneconomic, with a high dropout rate and high incidence of relapses to illiteracy, partly because of defects in planning. Teaching through oral communication, particularly of life skills, the second component of basic education, has been efficiently and systemat- ically pursued by a number of development sectors in a variety of countries. Interpersonal and community communication and mass and folk media can reinforce each other. The third component of basic education is production skills. These need to be relevant to the economic conditions in which they are to be used. Many youths in developing countries may need to be prepared for self-employment, since their prospects of finding wage employment in the modern sector are becoming increasingly remote. A compulsory break after primary.educatiozi to gain work experience would encourage a faster acquisition of skills and would reduce pressure on secondary-and higher level education. Universal basic education is economically feasible. The incremental costs for reaching families living in absolute poverty appedr to be about one seventh of the current global expenditure on education. Part of this need could be met through making existing educational activities more cost- effective; part through reallocation of existing educational resources; part through raising the share of public expenditure in countries where this would not mean undue sacrifices in productive and other services; and part through innovative measures to raise resources. Nevertheless, a small number of countries which are very poor and at an early stage of development would need to rely on external assistance. In some of the developing countries the major obstacle to the expansion of basic education is not its economic cost but the desire of the elite to keep their privileges, which are apt to be reinforced by existing administrative and social structures. Educational activities to meet the needs of the poor should be carefully planned, not hastily introduced in response to a crisis. Resources for education can be generated in many ways: - Educators can come from all walks of life. Anyone who has knowledge to share and service to offer is a potential educator. Assistance can be drawn from public servants, schoolteachers, students, workers, village youth, retired persons, and defense personnel. - Community organizations can improve both knowledge and income simultaneously--for example, by organizing cooperatives. - Development and execution of experimental basic education projects can be encouraged by institutions of higher learnir and by volunteer groups. To universalize basic education by the year 2000, the choice of a particular method, technique, structure, or technology must be based on the unique configuration of each country's socioeconomic circumstances and stage of economic development. The package of policy choices that will make up its strategy will therefore be unique. However, the main elements within such a package may include the following: - picgrams based on the method of delivery that is currently strongest (for example, primary school, educational radio, rural youth clubs for farmers' and artisans' training), making the knowledge delivered more relevant to the needs of the poor and building supportive activities around it; - educational planning that considers families the target unit; not only can individual members use new skills to the benefit of the whole family, but they can also teach each other. The family as a unit needs to acquire all basic skills as quickly as possible, although individual members may differ their full acquisition over a longer period, say 20 years; - priority target groups comprising those who are least able to realize an adequate income (landless and near landless peasants); who are least organized to articulate their needs (weax2rs, fishermen, artisans); and who have the best potential for disseminating and multiplying the effect of new knowledge (mothers, children, youth); - delivery of education timed to cconcide with advancement in other sectors--for example, new knowledge about the effects of contaminated water will be useless if no alternative supply is available, or conversely putting in new wells may be useless unless the community has knowledge about sanitation and hygiene; - the modes of learning--formal, nonformal and informal-- closely linked to support the progress of each mode; and - the educational functions of all sectors and agencies at different levels coordinated and linked by a systematic planning process. External assistance to basic education has been about 20 percent of the total educational aid, which was about $2.8 billion in 1975. Assuming that both the amount of total external assistance and the proportion given to basic education may substantially increase in the future, the total funds available from external sources could still be small, given the need of about $8 billion a year. - iv - Efforts should be made to direct external resources precisely to those poor countries whose educational profile is extremely low. But not all the poor countries may qualify. The criteria for assistance should be based not only on economic growth prospects and developmental needs but also on an assessment of the country's willingness to satisfy educational and other basic needs as equitably as possible and as quickly as its administrative and managerial competence will allow. Among those who qualify, preference could be given to those that have already instigated poverty alleviation measures such as landholding practices that favor poor and landless peasants, existence of rural fee>Aor roads, rural health services, and schools in the poverty areas. Probably only about a dozen countries will initially meet this criteria and should have priority over the others. Section I UNIVERSALIZING BASIC EDUCATION TO MEET BASIC HUMAN NEEDS Everyone, regardless of income level or social stratum, has the right to acquire a basic level of knowledge and skills. This principle, which has been accepted by all societies and is included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,l/ implies that a proper basic education allows an indivLdual to develop his own potential to the fullest and, at the same time, to become effective in a larger process of modernization and growth.2-/ Whether the basic learning should be considered an end in itself is an unresolved debate, but its potential benefit as a consumption good and source of pleasure cannot be separated from its utility in transmitting the life and production skills necessary to help people meet their basic needs. 1/ United Nations, A Compilation of International Instruments of the United Nations (New York, 1967). 2/ Several different kinds of education contribute to learning: formal education--graded, standardized, and certified learning generally taking place in school; o nornformal education--organized and systematic learning outside the formal system (as in agricultural extension, skill training centers, and adult literacy courses); o informal education--the unorganized, life-long process by which every person acquires knowledge, skills, and attitudes through experience and contact with others. Informal education accounts for the great bulk of any individual's total learning. Among its important sources are family peer group, the workplace, and the general information media to which an individual is exposed. -2- Why Universalize Education Three separate but interrelated perspectives illustrate the significance of basic learning to development. Fħrst, it is a basic human need.-/ It equips people with fundamental knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes and enhances their capacity to change and their willingness to accept new ideas. In developing countries where technological change is radically altering lifestyles, education is becoming increasingly necessary for survival: it helps people to understand and benefit from change, and to persevere in attaining their economic rights. Second, education is seen as a means of meeting other "core" basic needs (such as adequate nutrition, clean drinking water, and primary health care)-- mainly because it provides the necessary knowledge for change in current practices and skills to better use the services provided. As Chart 1 shows, realization of these core ,.eds is spirally influenced by basic education. Increased productivity and greater longevity arising directly out of basic education raise the demand for better housing, more food, cleaner water, and more educational and health facilities ;!hile also enabling society as a whole to better satisfy such needs. The relation is reciprocal. The satisfaction of each of these needs--and, conversely, the lack of meeting any one--places greater importance on realizing the others. For example, reduction of 1/ Education thus conceived has been a central topic in the present inter- national dialogue on global development. See Willy Brandt and others, North-South: A Programme for Survival--The Report of the Independent Commission on International Development under the Chairmanship of Willy Brandt (London: Pan Books, 1980), pp. 48-49, 57-59; The World Bank, Education Sector Policy Paper (Washington, D.C., 1980), pp. 10-15, 86-94; --, Meeting Basic Needs: An Overview, Poverty and Basic Needs Series (Washington, D.C., September 1980), pp. 6-12; -------, World Development Report, 1980. Part II: Poverty and Human Development (New York: Oxford University Press, August 1980), pp. 46-53; Robert S. MeNamara, "Address to the Board of Governors" (Washington, D.Q.: The World Bank, September 1980), pp. 17-27; Gerald 0. Barney (ed.), The Global 2000 Report to the President, vol. 2, The Technical Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gcvernment Printing Office, 1980), pp. 16-18. CHART 1: LINKAGE OF EDUCATION WITH BASIC NEEDS For society: Raises ability to provide mor:! services For individual: Raises consumption Wate and Poutvt snutitaion P. Food and / '| ater a nd | ro uctivity H tq | sani- /tato e5 *t t 1 ASIC Reduces P o EDULCATION Fertility I, \< =a>I f of ( Health 4A \ v t ~Longevity Shelter For individual: Influences learning ability and stimulates desire for increasdd knowledge For society: Raises demand for complex skills necessary beyond individual needs - 3 - gastrointestinal and parasitic diseases--which can be done through education, water and sanitation, and health programs--considerably increases the nutri- tion gained from a given quantity of food.-/ Improvements in nutrition, particularly in infants and young children but also in adults, can greatly improve their learning capacity and hence their benefits from education and, ultimately, their productivity and income. Conversely, although clean water can make an important contribution to better health, whether it will do so depends on the relevant education and understanding of its users.-/ Third, education also plays a critical role for development by infusing an individual an ability to identify with his changing culture and to seek a constructive role in his society.-/ Though this attribute of education cannot be directly measured, there is indirect evidence to corroborate this thesis. Experience has repeatedly shown that development projects are not well implemented unless adequate human knowledge and skills can nourish the investment of capital and transfer of technology. Raising a population's consciousness to deal with proper management of the environment--for conserva- tion, for the use of energy, and for preservation of natural resources--is also an expected outcome of education. Modernity of outlook, if it can be measured from activities such as voting, family planning, savings, and work habits, is more influenced by the level of an individual's schooling than by any other factor. In addition, many of the nonrecognitive effects of learning-- competitiveness, discipline, self-confidence, self-esteem, receptivity to 1/ See James E. Austin, Confronting Urban Malnutrition: The Design of Nutrition Programs, World Bank Staff Occasional Papers, no. 28 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), pp. 78-85. 2/ Richard G. Feachem and others, Sanitation and Disease: Health Aspects of Excreta and Wastewater Management, World Bank Studies in Water Supply and Sanitation, no. 3 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming), chapter 8. 3/ For a substantive review of effects of education on human development, see World Development Report, 1980 (New York; Oxford University Press). - 4 - new ideas--directly influence economic production. Recent studies have shown that the annual output of farmers who completed four years of primary schooling was on average 13.2 percent higher than those who had not been to school. An agricultural extension program in West Senegal, based on a "training and visit" method, helped in raising the proportion of land with high-yield wheat and paddy varieties of rice from less than 2 percent to 40 percent in a single year. Rates of return to primary education, compared to other levels of education, continue to be strikingly high (about 22 to 24 percent) in almost all developing countries. Limits of Organized Education The way education is interpreted and organized now in the developing countries, however, suggests that many of them will be unable to extend a proper education to major segments of their populations in the near future.-/ Criticism of formal education will likely mount, on the grounds that its content is irrelevant to the lifestyles and economic prospects of many of those who receive it. A continuing gap between the number of people and the funds to educate them will persist because of the limited availability of resources. The common tendency of the poor to remain outside the educational system will impede possibilities of improving their productivity and welfare. The numbers of people still without education are overwhelming. Though some economists postulate that a 40 percent literacy rate is the threshold level for a developing country's economic take-off, only half the developing countries have attained a literacy rate of more than 40 percent. The developing world currently has about 2.25 billion people of whom less than one-fifth--about 400 million--may be considered literate. Of those 1/ The weaknesses of the educational system in these countries are not confined to formal szhooling. Although data limitations make this difficult to document extensively, even nonformal and informal education in most developing countries today may b-e characterized as unproductive, costly, inefficient, and unable to provide beneficiaries with adequate services. remaining, only 315 million are now enrolled in the formal school system and may Decome literate in the future.-/ Two hundred and fifty million are children who have had limited or no access to formal schooling, and about 600 million are adults who have missed the opportunity of formal education. Approximately 60 percent of this last group are female. All this means that, for every person presently enrolled in school in the developing world, there are three people who are waiting in line for access to education and for whom new educational provision needs to be made. Moreover, the majority of these people in queue for an improved existence live in the poorest of the developing countries. As if these numbers are not sufficiently alarming, the dimensions of the problem have been growing rapidly as in many countries the numbers of people grow faster than the already limited resources to educate them: there are 100 million more illiterate people in the world now than there were 25 years ago, and there are now 54 million more youth out of school than in 1960, of whom 57 percent are girls. Neither are the prospects for the future encouraging. According to Unesco projections,/ if the trends observed during 1960-75 persist, then in Africa twenty-eight out of forty-six countries (repr,esenting 77 percent of the population) will not be able to reach a primary enrollment ratio of 80 percent by 1985. In Asia, fourteen countries out of twenty-seven (representing 1/ Two points slhould be noted. First, at the time this paper was written data on China were not avaħlable, Since then we have learned that about 207 tillion students are enrolled in the formal school system in Chitna; 147 million of them are at primary level, 59 million at secondary level, and 1 million at higher levels. Second, data on attainment of literacy from most developing countries are suspect. Various estimates of the literate population are possible, depending on what definition of "li'teracy" is to be accepted. For a broader discussion of definitional issues on literacy, see Abdun Noor, t'Managing Adult Literacy Training: Issues and Experiences" (Paris: International Institute of Educational Planning, September 1980). 2/ Unesco, Development of School Enrolment: World and Regional Statistical rends and PoEjections (Paris, July 1977). - 6 - 88 percent of the region's population) will face a similar inadequacy. Out- of-school youth in the developing countries will increase by 31 million. Furthermore, in the face of pressing population growth the primary enrollment ratio must increase by about 30 percent between 1975 and 1985 just to maintain the current level of primary schooling. Inefficiencies keep both the number of students in school and the quality of education they receive much below what the available funds imight permit. Only half of the entrants to primary school in developing countries reach the fourth grade, which is considered a threshold level for literacy. Repeaters occupy as many as 30 percent of the school places in some countries, though 15 to 20 percent is the average, and this erodes their self-confidence, an essential trait for self development.-/ Input-output ratios calculated for the dropout and repeater rates in each country show that the poorer the country, the lower the efficiency of its education system. Burundi and Rwanda spend more than five and three student-years, respectively, for each successful student year, whereas the Republic of Korea spends 1.03 student- years for each successful year. In many countries, the learning purveyed in schools is not well matched with what society needs for social, economic, and cultural progress. Primary school dropouts frequently have unrealistic aspirations about the types of careers they can pursue; these aspirations and a desire to escape from rural poverty send them in search of jobs for which they are inadequately prepared. Inequities in the distribution of educational opportunities have further widened, accentuating the disparities. Enrollments, especially at the primary level, have grown faster for males than for females, particularly 1/ Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator, has written, "So often do [the poor] hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing, and are incapable of learning anything that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness...they distrust themselves." See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the 22pressed (New York: Seabury Press, 1968), pp. 49-50. -7- in Islamic countries, and for urban populations at the cost of rural populations. Investment in formal education, when it is unrelated to economic conditions, tends to widen the gap between the rich and the poor in many countries.- In Bangladesh, poor farming families have been noticeably less interested in enrolling their children in primary school than have businessmen and civil servants who do not rely on their children's labor contributions. -/ In India 40 percent of the :-.t-of-school children 6-11 years old must work most of the time to supplement family income.3/ Be it by social choice, deliberate policy actions (including stiff selection methods based on grades), or by neglect, it is a fact that the poor have received a small share of formal education. Students from upper-income families usually dominate the higher levels of education. In India, 80 percent of those completing a university education came from 30 percent of the top echelon. In Bangladesh, the majority attending universities are from the professional and business classes, the army, the bureaucracy, or the wealthy land-downing class--groups who have collectively dictated policies to obtain a disproportionate share of educational benefits for their children./ The few who receive higher education also receive an expensive education. The 3 percent of students enrolled in higher education in developing countries command about one-fifth of the educational budget.-/ Also, because only a 1/ See, for example, Jean Pierre Jallade, Basic Education and Income Inequality in Brazil: The Long-term View, World Bank Staff Working Paper, no. 268 (Washington, D.C. 1977). 2/ T. Islam, Social Justice and the Education System of Bangladesh (University of Dacca, 1975). 3/ A.F.A. Hussan, Education Development and Reform in Bangladesh (Bergen: Chr. Michelsens Institute, 1978), p. 87. 4/ Ellen Satter, Socioeconomic Survey of Dacca University Students (Dacca: University Grants Commission, 1975). 5/ In Pakistan, almost as much is being spent to educate the 3 percent of the nation's students who are at the college and university level as is being spent to educate the 74 percent of the nation's students who are at the primary level. - 8 - few countries have progressive tax systems, the poor are often paying for the education of the rich, for a system that largely ignores their needs. Educational expansion in the developing world has on average closely matched the growth of gross national product (GNP) at about 5.4 percent per annum in the 1960s and early 1970s. But in many countries educational expenditures per capita have doubled over the past twenty-five years by growing twice or even three times as fast as GNP. Education at present typically accounts for about 4 percent of GNP and for between 18 and 25 percent of the public budget.- The average share of education in the budget of the developing countries as a group rose from 18.8 percent to 20.3 percent between 1966-70 and 1971-74. Low-income countries allocate half their educational expenditures in primary education (compared with 40 percent in the developed countries), even though only one-third of their children of primary school age are in school. In most countries the share of education in the go ernment's budget is unlikely to expand to accommodate new activities for the deprived, both because this share is already so large and because the small and new social sectors--health, population, and nutrition--are now competing for more fuLids, sometimes at the expense of education. In most developing countries the largest element in the public budget aside from education is defense, and it is not unlikely that an increase in the share of one sector will decrease the share of the other.-/ 1/ The share of GNP, however, ranges from 8.1 percent in Barbados (1976) to 1.4 percent in Paraguay (1979). The share of the public budget ranges from less than one-tenth (in Jordan, Malawi, Chad, Haiti, and Pakistan) to more than one-third (for example, Costa Rica, Benin, and Mali). See "Comparative Education Indicators" (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, Education Depart- ment, February 25, 1981). 2/ In Bangladesh, for example, education's share of the government's budget was reduced from 21 percent in 1973 to 14 percent in 1975, and a significant portion of the reduction went to defense. Zymelman found a small but significant negati-re relation between the allocation of resources in the education and defense sectors in a number of developing countries--see Manuel Zymelman, "The 'Burden' of Educational Expenditures and Its Forecast" (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, Education Department, January 1978). - 9 - The sheer size of the gap between the prospective resources for organized education and the prospective numbers of people suggests that achieving universal primary education in the foreseeable future is not a I/ realistic goal.-' Basic Education in Response to Basic Needs The concept of basic education introduced in this paper seeks to overcome the limitations of organized education by expanding the traditional concepts of an educational system and its functions. Basic education should meet the basic need of an individual to receive a foundation of knowledge, attitudes, values, and skills on which to build in later life for the benefit of himself and his society, whether or not he receives further formal instruction. This conception does not minimize the concomitant need of a society for additional higher skills to allow individual basic needs to be satisfied--through educators (teachers and extension workers, for example) and specialists (such as engineers, agronomists, and doctors) whose direct contributions are essential to its economic and social development. Basic education comprises planned activities in formal, nonformal, and informal education. It is a relative concept, not an absolute, whose appropriate elements vary according to the country and the individual. In essence, consists in the following: - Communication skills and general knowledge, which at the basic level include literacy (if possible), numeracy, and general civic, scientific, and cultural knowledge, values, and attitudes; - Life skills and knowledge, which embrace hygienic practices, sanita- tion, nutrition, family planning, the environment, management of the family economy, and creating and maintaining the home; and .I 1/ In Upper Volta (admittedly a somewhat extreme example), if education continued to expand at about 6 percent a year as it did in 1960-75, universal primary education would not be reached for at least 60 years, and it would take at least 100 years for the society to become fully literate. (At a 7.5 percent growth rate, universal primary education would be reached within 40 years, and at a 9 percent rate, within 30 years.) - 10 - - Production skills, which embrace all forms of activity directed toward making a living or the production of goods and services, at whatever level of sophistication. This concept of basic education does not imply a specific required number of years of formal schooling. Rather, it recognizes that the character, amount, and means of delivering education must necessarily differ according to the target group--whether children in school, children not in school, youth and adults--and their distinctive needs, and that the different elements of basic education are acquired over a lifetime. Six criteria govern the nature and characteristics of basic education. First, it has a clear base in economic, social, health, shelter, or nutritional human needs. Second, it is concerned with equity: there must be a high potential for equal distribution of whatever rewards are associated with educational outcomes (such as economic gain, improved health, and better nutrition). Third, it is linked directly to real employment opportunities, especially those involving a country's labor-intensive agriculture and industry. Fourth, it has a low cost per capita and per instructional unit. Fifth, it recognizes the aspirations of the learners, with responsive programs planned toward fulfillment of these aspirations. And sixth, it is of limited duration, with frequent completion points at which students may terminate. In sum, basic education responds effectively, as a means to achieve the goals of a human-needs approach to development. It has a close relatiinship between learning and action, between meaningful work and use. The learning takes place within the activities and values of everyday existence. It focuses on the learner and his or her environment--in the factory, in the shop, in the home, or on the farm. The rewards of learning are real rather than symbolic and reasonably immediate rather than deferred. - 11 - Conceptualizing Policy and the Means of Delivery Responding to this concept of basic education, and extending it to the bulk of the members of a society, places a special responsibility on policy planners. The task is complex and challenges some prevailing practices of educational planning. Above all, the concept implies making available the three components of basic education--communication skills, life skills, and earning skills--by means of three different modes of delivery--formal, nonformal, and informal learning--in varying degrees of "mix" and at a depth sufficient to satisfy the basic needs of varying groups in different parts of the developing world. The eventual goal is not the development of a two- tiered approach to education--basic education and formal schooling--nor the substitution of one for the other. Rather, it is the integration of all forms of education into a more comprehensive and unified view of learning that recognizes the relationship of learning to human action and aspiration. With this goal in mind, it is possible to visualize some of the operational steps that could be used for the delivery of basic education. Chart 2 attempts such. a visualization, and the remainder of the section discusses these steps in depth. Once these steps are clarified, the obstacles to universalizing basic education--and the means of overcoming them--can be addressed. For communication skills Primary education is one of the main instruments for providing communication skills: its beneficiaries are school-age children, so the investment benefits are reaped by the society over a long period; it has been the main source of literacy training; it has assisted economic development, growth, and the attainment of better living standards. Even though the number of educated people in the developing world has expanded spectacularly, evidence from developing countries indicates that primary education is still an effective and productive vehicle for increasing the earnings of poor Chart 2. OPERATIONAL STEPS IN THE DELIVERY OF BASIC EDUCATION Component of Major instrument or Nature of educational basic education means to satisfy need Target group Delivery mode action (illustrative) Communication skills Primary education Children Formal Bui'ld schools, provide teachers, etc. Literacy campaigns Youth Formal Use schools, Adults Nonformal build centers, initiate mass campaigns Life skills Primary education Children Formal Build schools; develop organized extention Youth Nonformal extension activities; improve Adults Informal media; support cultural activities, youth, and women's H programs > Production skills Training Youth Formal Build training centers, develop Adults Nonformal alternative modes of training Informal linked to encourage self- employment Higher skills needed Training Youth Formal Expand teacher training, develop by society for Adults Nonformal paraprofessional cadre of delivering basic Informal instructors, create village- education and level workers among women other basic needs. and youth - 12 - households. Estimated rates r!f return to primary education, based on wage data, are almost always found to be higher than returns to education at the higher levels.-/ Primary education. Some interventions can improve the relevance and efficiency of primary education. Access may be improved by raising the internal efficiency of the education system, by better use of facilities, and by better planning of school locations. Other possibilities for broadening educational opportunities are multigrade and nongraded classrooms, semiannual entry, and variations in the structure of the first cycle of primary education. Quality may be ensured t`rough curriculum planning, wide availability of textbooks and learning materials, the training and upgrading of teachers, alterations in teaching methods, and through appropriate teacher motivation and school management. Some routine administrative tasks such as payment of teacher's salaries on time, a regular supply of instructional materials, and maintenance of physical facilities also have a strong influence on the quality of instruction. The most primising option, however, is better adaptation of current practices. China and Sri Lanka have adopted a flexible school calendar to meet such local characteristics as the harvesting season and the availability of nonconventional teachers. India is introducing multiple entry points in the primary grades for the nine to fourteen age group and also proposes to replicate in several states an experimental scheme for primary education of one to two years' duration for teenagers. In Lahachock village in Nepal, rural children attend literacy classes in the morning and follow a planned 1/ For a detailed study of rates of return to education, see Timothy King (ed.), Education and Income, World Bank Staff Working Paper, no 402 (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, July 1980). - 13 - program of skill acquisition during the afternoon outside school, under the guidance of parents and teachers. In Pakistan, feeder schools run by housewives with at least an eighth grade education supplement primary schools by providing literacy training to a substantial nunber of children. Adult literacy training. Another instrument for forming communication skills is the literacy campaign. A national mass literacy campaign may be introduced if strong political backing and substantial national resources are forthcoming, but achieving universal literacy by this process is usually slow.-/ A few campaigns, however, have been notable. For example, Cuba within one year raised its literacy rate from about 75 percent to 96 percent, making about 700,000 persons literate. In Tanzania, 1 million people a year became literate over a four-year period. Nonetheless, in many countries achieving universal literacy has taken at least a decade. The USSR took about twenty-five years to raise its literacy rate from 25 percent in 1917 to 81 percent in 1939; the People's Republic of China, in its thirtieth year of communism, is still clearing the pockets of illiteracy. Although more than a hundred mass literacy campaigns have been launched during the past decade, the total effort has contributed only about 20 to 25 million new literates to society, compared with about 275 million added by primary education. The direct costs of a literacy campaign can be extremely high. The Cuban campaign had an actual outlay of US$52 million, which translated into US$73 per illiterate successfully taught to read and write--about one- tenth of the GNP per capita at that time. Most literacy campaigns have been uneconomic, with a high dropout rate and a high incidence of relapses to 1/ For an assessment of international literacy campaigns, see Abdun Noor, "Managing Adult Literacy Training: Issues and Experiences" (Paris: International Institute for Education Planning, September 1980). - 14 - illiteracy. Evaluations suggest there may have been several defects in planning, with respect to: - conceptualization: although literacy has often been seen as central to the acquisition of skills necessary for development, it is only one element of the basic education an adult needs for social and economic development; - motivation: perceptible economic benefits from becoming literate have often been either lacking or insufficient to offset the costs to the individual--including criticism from family and peers, sacrifice of leisure time, and time spent searching for a job; - teaching methods: adults have often been taught according to the same principles used in educating children, without regard to adults' knowledge and experience; - insufficient preparatory work: groundwork has often been insufficient to provide support services during literacy campaigns and to develop a learning environment that will induce the newly literate to use their acquired skills to avert relapses; - choice of target groups: women, although given the fewest opportunities to become literate, appear to be better motivated to join literacy classes, have a better attendance record, and are more likely to use the skills acquired. - choice of a language for literacy instruction: choosing a language for instruction in a multilingual society is both a technical and political act that influences the cultural identity, the economic power, and the learning competence of the people affected; using a people's mother tongue as a medium of - 15 - instruction may foster a sense of cultural identity and help them to learn more efficiently; but for the majority of people, the task of learning the mother tongue first, then transferring to a second language--the official or "contact" language--may be a complex and unproductive task. The widespread presence of illiteracy obviously sloiws development efforts. Yet ingenious communication techniques and approaches may be used to speed up the developmental process until higher livels of literacy are attained. 'he urgency of increasing food production or eradication of dreadful communicable diseases cannot and may not be held up until functional levels of literacy are attained. These efforts are made more difficult and proceed more slowly because of widespread illiteracy, but they should still go on. Some of these techniques are discussed in the next section. For life skills The major target group to be provided with the skills and knowledge to improve the quality of life is the family unit. Particularly in communities that are largely illiterate, experience suggests that oral communication of these skills can provide economic bendfits more quickly than formal education. Four ways of doing this are through personal contact by field workers, discussions within the community, radio broadcasts by the mass media, and folk media performances. Personal contact and group discussion with field workers. Oral communication and educative work by field workers appear to be the major methods for establishing contact with families and have been found to be most effective, Whether face-to-face contact is more efficient than group communication, or whether single-purpose workers or multipurpose workers are more appropriate, depends on particular circumstances. - 16 - Face-to-face contact may develop dependency and inhibit creativity, and it tends to be expensive. Group dialogues can alter attitudes to health and sanitation practices: in Indonesia, peer and community pressures increased the use of community latrines. But the group method lacks accountability and may lead to less efficient learning and inadequate use of suggested practices. If single-purpose workers are deployed too thinly, they are unable to reach the community in sufficient depth or to visit people often enough to maintain a continuity of learning. Multipurpose workers usually convey health, nutrition, and population-education skills; they can reach the community in greater depth, even though they maybe narrowly prepared in each discipline. But they also.need close supervision. One benefit of a single-purpose worker is that he begins to be "professionalized" if properly supervised. The multipurpose worker cannot identify with a profession and is more easily demoralized. Radio. Radio is the most powerful means of mass communication in the developing countries and has had a profound effect on them socially, politically, and culturally. But educational broadcasts by radio comprise only about 5 to 10 percent of the total air time, compared with 50 to 70 percent allocated to entertainment, and this limited time is shared by broadcasts in sveral languages. In some countries educational broadcasting is limited to the official or contact languages, thus limiting the potential audience. There are other limitations. The geographical coverage of radio broadcast is not often broad enough to reach the entire population. But where it does, the actual number of radio receivers may be much too small to derive any benefit from it. For example, Zaire has fewer than one receiver per thousand people, although its transmitters are the most powerfully equipped in Africa and broadcast twenty-three hours a day. By contrast, - 17 - Egypt and Liberia have, respectively, 166 and 255 receivers per thousand people, although their broadcasts need more orienting to development issues. The initial cost of owning a radio and its subsequent running expenses, however small, may be prohibitive for the poor. In many countries the cost of batteries, if imported, is exorbitant. In the long run, owning a radio appears to be more cost effective than purchasing daily newspapers. In Bangladesh, the total costs of using a radio over a seven-year period equal about two years' subscription to a daily newspaper. In India, these costs equal about one and one-half years' of subscription. Moreover, the distribution of newspapers requires greater logistical sophistication than may exist in many African countries. Folk media. Many socialist countries (such as China, Cuba, and North Korea) have used folk media efficiently for developmental purposes. Few nonsocialist developing countries, however, have systematically used folk media to foster living skills, although some attempts at population education have been made in Indonesia, and health practices are fostered in Bangladesh. By their nature folk media are more appropriate for rural than urban areas and, when used for developmental purposes, must be carefully organized. Folk performers must properly understand the innovation they are depicting and must manage not to distort the recreational nature of the program and so lose the interest of their audience. For production skills Policy interventions for instilling production skills must ensure that these skills are appropriate to the economic structure in which they are to be used. The traditional concepts that youth must be prepared for employment in structured positions, whether in the modern or traditional sectors, and that the longer such preparati6n the better the chance for employment, are now being questioned. - 18 - Many of the young in developing countries may need to be prepared for self-employment as their prospects of finding wage employment in the modern sector become increasingly remote. About 40 percent of the labor force of the developing countries is presently unemployed or underemployed, with a disproportionate concentration among the youth. It is estimated that in 1980, in Africa and in most of the Asian countries, only 25 percent of those of fifteen years of age will find wage employment. Even in relatively prosperous developing countries (such as the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Brazil, and Mexico), less than half of this age group stands a reasonable chance of employment in the modern sector. To cope with this problem obviously demands action on a wide variety of fronts, including efforts to encourage labor absorption in agriculture, to stimulate rural nonfarm employment, to construct infrastructure, provide services (including building homes and community centers), and to create productive enterprises. A sufficiently creative approach will recognize that youth are an asset and not a liability in meeting the goals of these societies. Attempts to make formal, basic education more relevant to self- employment may compromise the quality of theoretical instruction while failing to provide useful vocational training. Nonformal vocational training programs organized by the public sector have generally lacked specific objectives; they have been uneconomic and have given mixed results. Perhaps the best means of training for self-employment is nonformal programs run by non- governmental bodies, because of their low overhead costs, decentralized structure, capacity to be monitored, and flexibility to adjust to changing economic realities. Such programs may also be more in sympathy with youth. In Sri Lanka, for example, the Sarvodaya Sramadan movement trains rural youth to understand the problems of rural stagnation, to undertake intensive socioeconomic surveys, and to determine developmental goals. They initiate - 19 - actions; learn skills from farmers, carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths; practice these skills during all stages of production; and share the labor and produce equitably. The Botswana Youth Brigade, although more institutionalized and with more sophisticated training methods, has been able to tranLfer skills through a productive enterprise that covers a large part of the costs of training and generates resources as well as employment for the community. Judged by the criteria of proficiency, commercial viability, and employment experiences, the Brigade shows encouraging evidence of the possible contribu- tion by nonpublic agencies for training for self-employment. Two changes in the normal sequence of formal education may potentially be very useful in preparing youth for self-employment. A compulsory break after primary education to gain work experience would encourage better cultural integration of youth, faster acquisition of work skills, and would reduce pressure on secondary and higher-level education.-/ The second expedient is to expose primary school children to informal work experiences, through community enterprises, during their formative stages. 1/ Although usually as a break in the undergraduate curriculum, this is the practice of some institutions of higher education in the developed countries--in the United States, for example, Antioch University, the University of Cincinnati, Northeastern University, and Beloit College. - 20 - Section II ISSUES AND OBSTACLES IMPLICIT IN A POLICY OF UNIVERSALIZATION The concept of basic education as we have elaborated it expands a national learning system and its development. Instead of equating learning systems with systems of schooling and largely staying within those confines, the concept enlarges the view to include policies, methods, and resources that go beyond the schools. It enables a system of learning to find its roots and allows the mobilization of all available educational resources whereby the unique capacities of each are used to accomplish pa-rticular developmental goals. Weaving new policies and practices for this enlarged system of learning is much more demanding than the policy planning for traditional schooling. Critical issues which could impede a policy for the universalization of basic education, are often raised. Principal among them are the affordability of such a policy, the potential of organizational and human resources that could be tapped to support it, the complex decisions that need to be reached to implement it, and the very sociopolitical and administrative realities within which it and any social policy must operate. We will now review the impli- cations of each of these issues. Affordability Economic feasibility is the first consideration in planning a strategy for universalizing basic education. By including out-of-school youth and adults with no formal education, the target group expands immediately by a factor of - 21 - three to four. The incremental need for teachers, physical facilities, and other resources also inicreases manyfold, and these resources often have to be diverted from other developmental programs. What would be the costs of delivering basic education thus conceived? Can the developing countries afford it? A response to these questions should come from analyzing the factors that determine the ability of a country to allocate greater financial resources to achieve educational expansion and from examining alternative measures by which the increased educational costs can be met. Financial commitment Compared with the developed countries, the developing countries as a group have spent less of their resources on education. During the 1960s in the developing world, allocation to education, as a proportion to the GNP, was 2.3 percent--compared with 4 percent allocated by the developed world, about 42 percent less. In the 1970s, though both groups raised their allocations to education by about 50 percent--from 4 to 6 percent of GNP in the developed world, and from 2.3 percent to 4 percent of GNP in the developing world, the developing countries still trailed behind, even in the face of rising demands (see table 1). Although some developing countries budget large amounts for education--as much as 9.9 percent of the GNP (for example, Jamaica in 1976)-- not all do. Currently about three-fourths of the developing countries commit less than 5 percent of their GNP for education. Many would agree that, given the long struggle that organized education in the developing countries must join, raising education's share to the level of 6 percent allocated by the developed world is not only justifiable but a basic need. - 21a - Table 1: Public Expenditure on Education as Percentage of GNP 1960-1975 (current prices) 1960 1965 1970 1972 1973 1974 1975 .World 3.8 4.9 5.4 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.7 Developed countries 4.0 5.2 5.7 5.7 5.8 ,5.7 6.0 Developing countries 2.3 3.0 3.3 3.6 3.7 3.9 4.0 Source: Compiled from World Development Reports 1979 and 1980, and other available data. - 22 - Estimating global costs Will this allocation be sufficient to meet the global costs of universalizing basic education? Given the paucity of data, global cost estimates for delivering basic education are difficult to make and, when made, should be treated with caution because they are based on assumptions about the future that may or may not be valid for particular countries. The results necessarily indicate only broad orders of magnitude, for several reasons. First, basic education itself is a variable concept to be defined by each society, and one for which no worldwide measure is available. Also, the unit costs of delivering basic education between countries vary widely and are not related to country income levels. Cost analysis on the criterion of affordability is difficult because basic education functions are dispersed over a number of sectors and agencies and because the costs of providing some of the skills (for example, the expenses incurred to prepare a youth for self- employment or a nonfarm occupation or to provide nutritional information to a housewife) have never been systematically measured. Moreover, the informal education costs per recipient, a major component of basic education, are not measurable. Finally, the assumptions that need to be made on learning needs, the duration of education required to learn each skill, relative costs of teaching different skills, average GNP, teacher salaries, numbers of poverty households, and other variables may be plausible but will nonetheless yield only a very fragile estimate. With these limitations in mind, such an indicative cost estimate, on the basis of probable demands, has been attempted. I realize that the demand for basic education may not arise in the immediate future from those unschooled - 23 - adults who are already earning'a reasonable income. It is the ignorant poor, unschooled youth, and deprived women from whom the demand will surge and to whom priority should be attached. Most of these people reside in absolute poverty. It is estimated that there are at present 770 million absolute poor, distributed among 144 million families. The global costs to this group, in my estimate, is in the order of US$156 billion. - Although developing countries' present public expenditures for education averaging about 4 percent of the GNP and translate into about US$40 billion annually, these data may underestimate the total magnitude of the educational effort in these countries. Expenditures incurred by ministries other than the ministry of education, semipublic bodies, local governments, and private bodies are often excluded or only partially accounted for, yet are likely to be substantial. All in all, the extended education and training sector may well account for as much as 10 percent of GNP in many countries. A conservative estimate of about 5.5 percent of the GNP will suggest an annual figure of about US$55 billion. Hence, the incremental cost of about US$8 billion (to make a total of US$156 billion over twenty years) for deliver- ing basic education to the poor amounts to only one-seventh of what is being spent annually at present. There is a lurking fear, however, that raising the educational share above current levels by shifting financial resources from other developmental activities will deter both growth and development. This fear is ill founded because recent studies have conclusively shown not only that education assists in achieving growth but that it, as an essential component of the dissemination of knowledge, also complements the investment made in many developmental sectors.- 1/ See annex 1 on how the estimates have been calculated. 2/ For a comprehensive view of the evidences see the World Development Report, 1980 (New York: Oxford University Press, August 1980). - 24 - Yet in many countries the critical question is not how to get an increased ,share of the budget, but how to hold on to the abysmally low share education already has. For argument's sake, we have calculated how expenditure on basic education, if treated entirely as a consumption and a welfare activity, could influence the rate of growth. Our exercise shows that an expenditure of US$8 billion a year, on top what is now being spent for education, could theoretically slow the rate of growth of GNP by about one-half of 1 percent. Are the developing countries in a position to make this sacrifice in growth? Between 1970 and 1980, the developing countries as a group displayed an annual rate of growth of 2.9 percent (see table 2). Some of them, however, experienced a very high growth rate, up to 10 percent (for example, Korea, Syria), while many others (particularly in sub-Saharan Africa) experienced a negative rate of growth. Overall, two-thirds of the countries have had rates above 3 percent. Forecasts for 1980-90 suggest that growth rates in all developing countries will improve, but the potential for improvement in low-income countries are steeper, from 1.7 percent during 1970-80 to as much as 2.5 percent during 1980-90, compared with 3.1 to 3.4 percent for the middle-income countries. In the face of such probable growth rates, a sacrifice of about one-half of 1 percent at best, even considered as a total consumption, would appear to be a somewhat negligible cost when compared with the much greater potential benefits in human terms. We realize, however (as the next paragraph will show), that education of the illiterate significantly contributes to the growth in GNP. Even though there is a remote theoretical possibility that shifting more money to education could decelerate the rate of economic growth, in actual practice it has not.-L/ Recent studies have shown that educated farmers are 1/ For a comprehensive review of education's contribution to economic growth and income, see two staff working papers prepared for the World Bank: .Education and Income, edited by Timothy King; and Primary Schooling and Economic Development: A Review of the Evidence, by Christopher Colclough. Table 2: Growth of GNP Per Person by Region, 1960-90 GNP Average annual percentage growth per person, Population, 1980 Low case High case 1980 (current 1960 1970 1980 1985 1980 1985 Country group (millions) dollars) -70 -80 -85 -90 -85 -90 Low-income oil importers 1,133 216 1.6 0.9 1.0 1.3 1.7 2.4 Africa (Sub-Saharan) 141 239 1.6 0.2 -0.3 0.1 0.1 1.1 Asia 992 212 1.6 1.1 1.1 1.5 2.0 2.6 Middle-income oil importers 701 1,638 3.6 3.1 2.0 2.4 2.6 3.5 East Asia and Pacific 162 1,175 4.9 5.6 4.1 4.1 4.7 5.2 Latin America and Caribbean 256 1,775 2.7 3.5 2.2 2.4 2.6 3.8 North Africa and Middle East 30 667 -0.2 0.4 0.0 0.6 0.6 0.8 Africa (Sub-Saharan) 125 867 2.4 0.9 1.3 1.3 1.6 1.4 Southern Europe 128 2,950 5.4 3.2 2.2 2.2 2.5 3.4 Oil importers 1,834 751 3.1 2.7 1.8 2.2 2.4 3.2 Oil exporters 456 968 2.8 3.5 3.0 3.0 3.5 3.4 All developing countries 2,290 791 3.1 2.9 2.0 2.3 2.6 3.3 All low-income 1,310 245 1.7 1.7 1.2 1.8 2.1 2.5 All middle-income 980 1,521 3.4 3.1 2.1 2.4 2.7 3.4 Capital-surplus oil exporters 69 4,614 7.3 5.0 2.3 2.3 2.8 2.8 Industrialized countries 671 9,684 3.9 2.4 2.5 2.5 2.8 3.5 Centrally planned economies 1,386 1,720 n.a 3.8 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 Sources: Wor - 25 - more productive than the uneducated.-/ In South and East Asia, for instance, exposure to four years of schooling has recently yielded an almost 7 percent increase in the earnings of small farmers; when their activities were supported by agricultural extension, the farmers' earnings increased by as much as 14 percent. Besides raising incomes, more and better education often induces recipients' mobility between occupations and betweeri sectors, allowing indivi- duals to increase their productivity substantially. This effect is not normally captured by the data on the effects of education on earnings but is all too visible among the populace of the developing world. Basic education, when it is relevant to the needs of the population, is also a good economic investment from a national point of view. The rate of return to a country's investment in primary education has often been higher for the individual than the return on any other investment, including other levels of schooling. The mean rate of return was about 29 percent in the mid-1960s. Even where the inevitable waiting and searching for employment by the educated affected the costs of foregone earnings and eroded the benefits of additional earnings, the rates of return still remained respectable. In the absence of such financial commitment, two consequences seems inevitable: first, the majority of the underprivileged will receive either no education at all or will be served by "spoon feeding" that has little relevance to their ne2eds and brings no lasting benefits; second, without education they can use, the poor will continue to be bypassed by the development process. -1/ See Marlaine E. Lockhead, Dean T. Jamison and Lawrence J. Lau, "Farmer Education and Farm Efficiency: A Survey," in Education and Income, edited by Timothy King, pp. 113-520. - 26 - Cost-Reducing Measures There are other measures besides raising the claims of education on scarce resources, as discussed above, that the developing countries could consider for raising more financial resources. Eliminating inefficiencies and altering technologies can reduce costs with little loss in educational quality. Increasing domestic resources for expanding basic education by more imaginative uses of their existing resources fall into four types. Redistribution of existing resources The dilemma here is generally whether to provide higher education to a small number or to provide basic education to a greater number of people. -/ Higher education costs 58 times as much as primary education per student in - Western Africa, 46 times as much in Eastern Africa, about 20 times as much in Asia, and 11 times as much in Latin America. In Burundi, for example, the savings from a 17 percent reduction in current university enrollment, about 400 students, would finance the provision of basic literacy to nearly 100,000 pupils representing about 14 percent of the primary age group. Similarly, a 10 percent reduction in enrollment in Burundi's primary education would enable the country to provide basic literacy to about 88 percent of the primary age group by 1982.3/ The chief determinant of unit costs is teachers' salaries, which account for between 80 to 90 percent of the recurrent budget. In general, teachers' salaries are low in Asia, at about 2 to 3 times the GNP per capita, 1/ This dilenma also exists in the process for modernizing agriculture. Access to more information for a selected group of farmers is usually weighed against more access to information for a large number of small farmers. 2/ World Bank internal note from Andre Salmon, November 1978. - 27 - and relatively high in some African countries (Madagascar, Somalia, Upper Volta, for example), at 10 to 15 times the GNP per capita. Teachers' salaries, however, should not be singled out as a means of reducing costs, but should be assessed according to the total salary structure for civil servants and government officials--otherwise the quality of instruction may suffer.-/ One imaginative method of reducing teachers' costs is to use student monitors and less-than-fully qualified teachers to assist the full-time teachers. For example, if unit costs could be reduced through use of less qualified teachers, larger classes, and larger schools, Pakistan could be able to provide 85 percent of the appropriate age group with primary education by 1995, with about the same proportion of the GNP (0.5 percent) now allocated for primary education to educate only 54 percent of the student population. Reliance on community-financed education The private sector accounts for a sizeable portion of the total enrollments and bears a substantial proportion of the educational costs, especially at the secondary and postsecondary level. For example, in the Philippines private institutions accounted for about half (52 percent) of total secondary enrollments in 1974. Similarly, in Kenya in 1976, the parent- supported Harambee schools and other private schools accounted for well over half of all secondary school places. In India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, the private sector dominates the education of secondary and postsecondary level students. For example, 98 percent of the secondary schools, 98 percent of the 1/ Primary teachers' own education, to grade 10 plus some professional training in many developing countries, places them in the top 5 percent of the population. If their salaries are low, they may take supplementary employment (as in Indonesia), be absent from their duties (as in Bangladesh and Pakistan), or have recourse to private tutoring of more affluent pupils in the evenirng. - 28 - intermediate colleges, and almost 90 percent of degree-granting colleges in Bangladesh are privately supported. The observable trend in some of these countries, however, has been gradually to transfer administrative control and financial responsibility of private schools to the public sector on the assumption that this may improve the quality of instruction and reduce the burden of the disadvantaged community. Although there may be some merit to this argument, the principle of equity for basic education suggests a far greater reliance on the private sector for postprimary education. Reliance on local resources Third, use of a variety of local resources, some of which may not be seen as characteristically educational resources, can be made. Brazil raises funds for literacy program through a state lottery. The USSR funded 75 percent of its literacy campaign expenditures from local contributions, and another 21 percent came from trade unions and cooperatives. Sudan uses the resources of religious institutions. Earmarked local taxes, levies on employers, or levies on second marriages (as was practiced in preindependent Bangladesh--the military rule of Ayub Khan 1959-1968) may all generate financial resources that can be used to educate a larger group of people. Cost-effective programs The fourth and most promising option is to raise the cost-effec- tiveness of current educational programs. Pakistan allocates about 1.7 percent of GNP to education, and 0,6 percent to primary education. Yet, as we have seen earlier, Pakistan could, through reducing unit costs by a consolidation of learning facilities and use of nonconventional teaching personnel, provide - 29 - 95 percent of the age group with primary education for about the same proportion of GNP as is spent now (0.5 percent by 1995). These cost-saving measures would not only improve the quality of primary education but would also deliver other needed elements of basic education. Tapping Organizational and Human Resources Achieving universal basic education will require both the judicious use of available funds, as discussed above, and the imaginative use of societies' organizational and human resources. Tapping the potential of those institutions already continuing educative tasks offers not only new ways of generating additional resources, but also the means of spreading the benefits more widely. Four distinct types of institutions--participatory community organizations, institutions of higher learnings, nongovernmental agencies, and those members of society capable of serving as basic educators--offer favorable promis-s and directions. Of course, selecting institutions with the best demonstrated capacity among those available requires an understanding of the unique capacities of each resource as well as the environment in which the goals of the program can be achieved. Participatory community organizations The wide participation of a community in designing and operating its activities is essential to the success of a basic education program. Local control and leadership provide the flexibility needed for proper integration and timing of educational activities with health, nutrition, and other sectoral programs. The community, with its knowledge of the locality, can use existing resources more imaginatively and can provide invaluable advice when it is necessary to modify plans in response to cnanging conditions. Community participation may be generated by grass-roots organizations, political parties, or governmental groups. It may reflect the felt needs of the community or come about through emulation of a neighboring community. - 30 - The opinion leaders in many communities are, in a sense, the ideational entr,epreneurs. They may not be literate, but they can effectively communicate their likes and dislikes throughout the community. The success of a basic education program can depend on how the differing views of opinion leaders can be balanced for and against change. Centralized decision making, with built-in participation of the beneficiaries, has succeeded in bringing education to the bulk of the popula- tion in socialist countries, notably China and Cuba. These countries have seen basic education as a means to foster ideology. Other countries have successful participatory bodies, organized on government or local initiative, through which the community can develop and manage its own programs. Expetience suggests that the most viable programs are those which simultaneously improve both knowledge and incomes. Cooperatives are ideal, especially for youth, because they provide not only income but also opportunities to develop competence and leadership qualities through participation in group efforts. In Sri Lanka, largely a literate society, the Rural Development Societies (RDS) have brought life and production skills to the majority of the rural population. There are now about 5,000 of these societies, some of which started at least twenty years ago. They cover a third of the country's population and act as the coordinating agencies for all development activities at the village level. Through these societies, rural people discuss problems with government officials, air grievances, express their needs and aspirations, and take part in designing and implementing community programs. Although the societies are apt to elect presidents with high social standing and secretaries with good educational backgrounds, the poor appear to be fairly represented. Major problems facing the societies are the government extension workers' lack of interest in the societies - 31 - located in the poor areas, conflicts arising from the generation gap, and interference by politicians. Grass-roots organizations oriented toward youth are active in Benin, where the 4D clubs for boys and girls thirteen to fifteen years old started on local initiative and with local resources. Programs in literacy and numeracy, nutrition, health and hygiene, and agricultural techniques are designed and run with the assistance of a rural development agent. Club members take part in collective agricultural activities, using the profits for the socioeducative programs. Although the clubs enroll only a small proportion of the eligible adolescents, they are the focal point for all developmental and modernization activities undertaken at the village level by local and national authorities. When a club member's training is completed, the individual receives government assistance to establish him or herself as an independent farmer or cooperative member. The total recurrent cost of basic education per club member is estimated to be about 40 percent of the per student cost of primary education. The major weaknesses of the 4D clubs are poor planning and administration at the central policy level, weak coordination between regional development agencies and 4D clubs, unbalanced training, and, in some places, weak organization at the local level. Institutions of higher learning In many societies the demand for greater public services has brought the institutions of higher learning into direct, increasing involvement in developmental projects. This change in their function from discovery and dissemination to actual application of knowledge for development has many benefits: - it engages the best intellectual and creative resources of the society in rural transformation; - it fully uses often underemployed faculty; - 32 - it immerses the students participating in developmental programs in the realities of life; it directly repays the poor a fraction of the resources furnished by them. Although small in scale, such activities are usually successful, but may be difficult to replicate nationwide. Paradoxically, because of their unique institutional strength and discipline of objectivity, centers of higher learning are better equipped to search for methods of replication than are the sectoral agencies and might well be encouraged to do so. Groups in the private sector Voluntary, nongovernmental organizations have traditionally performed a wide range of educational functions that might well serve as rich resources for basic education programs. Business and industry groups, social and welfare organizations, professional societies, youth groups, and even library and museum societies--none of whose prime concern is formal education-- have been able to fill some important gaps that are beyond the reach of public services. They are likely to continue to cooperate as long as basic education programs are developed in response to popular needs and are not imposed from the top. Potential basic educators An educator for basic education is anyone with knowledge to share and service to offer. His skills are represented not simply by academic credentials but by life experience. He or she can come from any walk of life and often embodies unique experience. This approach to learning suggests using master practitioners and skilled workers to offer practical courses, qualified extension workers from various sectors to take a regular part in school teaching and other basic education programs, youth to take over some of the extension and outreach functions, and educated housewives to devote - 33 - attention to selective literacy activities. Schoolteachers are the most accessible source of knowledge in any community; they are increasingly being given community responsibilities. Literacy programs in many developing countries--such as Tanzania, Somalia, and India--have relied on primary school teachers. Although lately such a policy has been questioned, mainly because the additional responsibility tends to divert teacherst attention from classroom instruction, in many societies trained manpower is too scarce not to rely on this group. Many countries have surplus primary teachers recruited under political pressure who might be retrained and deployed for broader educational purposes. Recently, the state of Tamil Nadu in India has diverted 20 percent of its teachers from primary to adult education. Students at secondary and higher levels have historically been in the forefront of national political liberation struggles. But after achieving independence, they have made a few sporadic attempts to help sustain the cause of economic and social emancipation. National service schemes have had some success toward this end, but could be even more successful if fully integrated into the academic system. Students at all levels could be encouraged to provide assistance to basic education programs before graduation, in between terms, and at other times, and they could be given academic credit for doing so. Village youth who are trained as educators and become peer leaders can greatly assist educational progress, especially among women and nomadic groups. In addition, this process creates a new class of rural leaders, reduces rural unemployment, and minimizes the cultural alienation of rural youth. Youth often seem to perform best when associated with nongovernmental voluntary agencies, trade unions, and political parties. - 34 - Public servants--when systematically deployed to serve rural areas, encouraged to live in the villages, allowed to participate in grass-roots dialogues and in rural works--have consistently fostered an improved communication of developmental knowledge and rural leadership. Experience in Somalia and Bangladesh has shown encouraging prospects for systematically pursuing this policy. Defense personnel who are skilled could in peacetime be deployed to spend about 10-15 percent of their time in spreading basic education. Retired professionals also have a wealth of experience that could be uised for basic education. In some countries many of them settle in urban areas, so it would be necessary to provide them with allowances and incentives for rural living. Reaching Complex Managerial Decisions Developing a broad structure of educational management is a pre- requisite to the implementation of a basic education policy. Administrative decisions are needed on at least four issues: determining structural changes within a government that will assist corss-sectoral integration of policy making and resources; deciding how responsibility for educational functions is to be allocated; devising a process for inducing motivation among those to be educated; and, finally, answering the question of leadership itself. Though resolution of these issues presents a formidable threat to current managerial practices, none of them is unsurmountable, and in fact many countries have already made the forwarding step. A strong and dynamic central authority for policy has been instituted by some countries with the objective of integrating the policies of different sectors that have links to basic needs. Such authority views the probable demands for services nationwide, musters resources across the sectors, and acts as a planning group with representatives drawn from concerned ministries, universities, professional organizations, voluntary agencies, and beneficiaries. - 35 - Cuba has created local leadership down to the village level, in successive steps of central, state, district, and block coordination. Each level acts as a forum for local problems, feeds back data to parent agencies, serves as the planning agency for the local area, and in some instances implements programs drawn up by itself. In another instance, the field workers of specialized agencies are brought together in a multipurpose training institute to enchange ideas and to learn from each other each sector's developmental potentials, limitations, and possible options. This helps field workers to receive a broader, more unified view of development and a clearer perception of their respective roles in attaining broader goals. Integration is also encouraged by deploying field workers with more than one area of expertise. The next fundamental task is to identify the ways by which educational functions may be allocated among sectors and to those institutions which can perform them most efficiently. In education as traditionally conceived, this is relatively simple: literacy is allocated to primary schools, vocational education to technical schools, and professional education to universities. But many teaching functions seen from the standpoint of basic education cannot be so easily and neatly assigned. There needs to be a continuous examination of the kinds of educative institutions that are best prepared to serve particular needs and of whether or not new institutions ought to be established. The third task is to ensure that the potential beneficiaries make use of educational opportunities once these have been provided. Motivation to make use of educational opportunities can be fostered directly in several ways, but none has proved universally effective. Incentive payments, usually the mainstay of adult education programs, are open to abuse and quickly lose - 36 - their appeal; so do social pressures to become literate, applied through the spouse or children enrolled in school. In most societies, poor people's desire for education depends on whether or not they perceive it to bring economic benefits that will outweigh the expenditures, opportunity costs, and risks involved in undertaking it. This depends on socioeconomic conditions that go far beyond the purview of the education sector. If unemployed youth have reason to believe that vocational or literacy training will improve their chances of finding a job or their ability to establish themselves as entrepreneurs in the informal sector, then they may be willing to invest time in education that might otherwise be spent searching for jobs. If small farmers perceive that an agricultural extension agent has demonstrably improved crops on farms.like their own, and that their tenure arrangements are such that they would benefit from adopting the new techniques, they are likely to be receptive to the agent's advice.l/ A final task is the establishment of leadership. The education sector obviously cannot be expected to take the lead at all levels for developing and organizing basic education programs. The intensity, quality, and nature of the programs should be the criteria for determining that leadership, and outstanding achievements by specific sectors should be recognized. Overcoming Sociopolitical and Administrative Realities The greatest obstacles to mounting genuinely effective programs for meeting the needs of the poor in a stratified society are not economic but sociopolitical and administrative realities. 1/ As is shown in Nimai, the World Bank's recent documentary film on agricultural extension in Srishnagar, India. - 37 - The party in power The political party in power frequently represents and often promotes the interests of those with high socioeconomic status--the bureaucracy, the urban intelligentsia, the armed forces, the business community, professionals, and the rural elite. The rural landless and near landless, as well as people in the urban informal sector, lack economic power and have little say in government decision making. Indeed, mary governments will be moved to provide basic needs only if faced with a crisis. Without political commitment, basic education will continue to have a low priority. Even given the political will on the part of the government, it is nowhere certain that the elite will be moved to design and deliver a program that it perceives as running counter to its interests.-/ Administrative realities Another group of constraints or obstacles could be termed administra- tive. Many countries are short of trained and qualified middle-level administrators who could plan and manage educational systems, train enough teachers, and deploy appropriate teaching staff to rural and remote areas. This shortage of technical personnel is a problem not only for the education sector but also for overall socioeconomic development. Experience shows that in many countries large numbers of teachers trained in technology and science have abandoned the teaching profession (for example, in Pakistan, Iran). Staffing of agencies operating in remote regions and rural areas has become an unsurmountable task in the Sahelian countries. 1/ Tanzania's experience is a classic example of such a gap between political will and bureaucratic power: President Julius Nyerere declared in the parliament in 1964, during the inauguration of the first Five Year Plan, that "First we must educate adults. Our children will not have an impact on our economic development for five, ten, or ever, twenty years." Fifteen years later, the elite has yet to translate the presidential will into actions that would contradict its own sentiments. - 38 - Cultural realities Although people in most countries place a high value on education, not all segments of the population do. For example, farming parents in rural Greece traditionally assure their economic viability by assigning their eldest son to farm work, while allowing any remaining sons to go for primary education. Moreover, among those desiring education, the kinds of education desired may vary widely. In most rural societies, for example, where the dominant ambition for one's children is to escape the drudgery and poverty of the village, many parents want a primary education for their children that would make it possible (however remote the chances) for the students to continue onto a higher level--even though the conventional formal schooling is unsuited to most needs of village life, which the majority of students will continue. Overall basic education and the reality of underdevelopment In the most underdeveloped areas, basic education cannot take firm roots until fundamental human services are extended to the population in one form or another. In some areas, investing in education in the absence of other services can become counterproductive. For example, half of the rural literates of the Somalian literacy campaign are reported to have relapsed into illiteracy because no reading materials were available to them and they had no opportunity to use their newly acquired skills. This would suggest that at least half of the educational investment,which could have been used for meeting other basic needs in that country, was wasted. Creating village schools at acceptable costs is quite conceivable, but supplying them with qualified teachers, learning equipment, and books is a different matter. These constraints are fundamental and will not disappear overnight, even if a poor nation musters sufficient political will to educate the illiterate. - 39 - Besides, if basic education demands a widespread and sustained effort on the part of the poor, these demands need to be planned thoughtfully, not introduced as ad hoc palliative measures from on high. - 40 - Section III STEPS TOWARD IMPLEMENTING A POLICY FOR UNIVERSALIZING BASIC EDUCATION Because different educational responses are appropriate in different value systems and varying cultural-political climates, there can be no uniform strategy to implement the policy of making basic education universally available to all needing it. The structure of a strategy--a mix of method, technique, content, and technology--draws upon the particular configuration of each country's socioeconomic circumstances and stage of economic development. Each strategy must therefore be unique in its ability to respond to the needs of each country, or even for each society within a country. This concluding section takes cognizance of the concepts and limits, issues and obstacles examined thus far and poses a manageable course of international action. Elements of a Policy Package However disparate the circumstances of countries may be, a broad policy package can nevertheless be formulated that is consistent within the spirit recognizing uniqueness but that also allows, encourages, and enables each country to design its own strategy under a global rubric. The principal elements within such a policy package would include the following. First, the initial activities are built upon the method of delivery that is currently strongest, making the knowledge delivered more relevant to the needs of the poor and building supportive activities around it. Second, families and not individuals should become the principal targeting unit. The family as a unit should acquire all basic skills as quickly as possible, although individual members may differ in their full acquisition over a longer period--say twenty years. Third, the delivery of education is timed - 41 - to coincide with advancement in other sectors. The modes of learning-- formal, nonformal, and informal--are also closely linked to support the progress of each mode. Fourth, a systematic planning process within a set time frame should coordinate the educational functions of all sectors and agencies at different levels. Finally, the priority groups for receiving basic education should comprise those who are least able to realize an adequate income; those least organized to articulate their needs; and those who have the best potential for disseminating and multiplying the effect of new knowledge. We can now assay the rationale of each of these policy elements as a prelude to the discussion later on of a set strategy that the developing countries could consider. The first element of a policy package is the identification of the instrument that is strongest in a community for delivering basic education, using it, and building supportive activities around it. Let us illustrate this principle with some examples from two countries. Bangladesh has a network of 41,000 primary schools and 8,000 secondary schools that virtually cover the country: there is a school within every square mile. Their physical facilities are better than most rural houses. Schoolteachers are the best educated persons in the villages and are revered. But schools could be much more efficient than they are at present. They are used at most for seven hours a day, for about 100 days a year, and only 55 percent of them have double shifts. Of the 70 percent of children who enter primary school at present, more than half drop out between grades 1 and 2, and only 15 percent complete the five-year primary cycle. The chance of a girl reaching grade 5 is only half that of a boy. Teacher absenteeism is even higher than student absenteeism. it is common to have a class group spend a whole day or shift without a teacher. Learning resources and instructional materials are inadequate. Though teaching aids are - 42 - comparatively cheap, at about US$1.5 per pupil-year (less than 0.3 percent of the teacher's salary), only half the pupils possess instructional materials. Radio in Bangladesh has universal coverage, and television theoretically reaches 80 percent of the population.-/ Yet only one-fifth of the rural population and one-seventh of rural schools have electricity. The choice of instruments for Bangladesh should therefore be (i) a broadening of the role and use of schools, (ii) an expanded use of the media, and (iii) selective extension programs to complement media instruction. In contrast, Upper Volta has a much smaller stock of primary schools. The government has opted to delay education until age seven and to provide agricultural training for a larger number of people at a lower cost. It proposes to offer eight years of primary education to about 20 to 30 percent of seven to fourteen year olds and to send those who do not attend primary school to a farmers' training center for literacy training and life and production skills at the age of fifteen for a three year period. This system could provide basic education at a third of the cost per pupil of primary education. Moreover, there are signs that the farmers' centers could become a catalyst for village development and increased popular participation in development projects. It would be wrong to bypass this strong institution for a relatively weak primary education system. The second element of a policy package is the treatment of the family as the principal target unit. Family influences have been the major factor in school achievement, the use of new nutrition and health practices, 1/ Bangladesh's population is so dense that educational television could probably be economic. The cost of distributing television sets to each Bangladeshi village, estimated at TK1,000 million, would be about half what is spent on the development of higher education. See J. Faaland, and J.R. Parkinson, Bangladesh: The Test Case of Development (London: C. Hurst and Co., 1976), p. 163. - 43 - and increased consumer demand. Not only can individual members use new skills on behalf of the whole family, but they can also teach each other.-/ The immediate priority is to provide to each member of the family an appropriate component of basic education: either communication skills, life skills, or production skills, so that the family as a unit can command the whole range of skills it needs. The third element is, of course, the synchronization of advancement in education with other cross-sectoral efforts. Education for meeting basic needs, especially in the area of life skills, requires cross-sectoral efforts. While keeping pace with the efforts of other basic-needs sectors, education should usually parallel or follow other sectoral actions rather than precede them. For example, new knowledge about the effects of contaminated water will be useless if no alternative supply is available, or conversely, putting in new wells may be useless unless the community has knowledge about sanita- tion and hygiene. The fourth element is to determine a time frame which is compatible with the capacity to implement the program for universalization. The chosen time frame for the satisfaction of basic human needs has an important bearing on the choice of target groups, on the method of delivery, and on trade-offs among activities. A short time horizon will mean sacrificing the interest of some for the benefit of others: for example, trading adult basic education through nonformal methods for teaching some children through formal methods. A time frame of 15 to 20 years will allow easier planning with fewer trade-offs. 1/ For a social anthropological perspective on the family see Constaritina Safilios-Rothschild, "The Role of the Family: A Neglected Aspect of Poverty." In Implementing Programs of Human Development, ed. Peter Knight World Bank Staff Working Paper,no. 403 (Washington, D.C., July 1980). - 44 - A systematic plan covering such a long period will allow existing efforts to provide necessary skills to urban and rural poor, children, and youth to be consolidated and imbalances to be redressed. A longer time horizon than usually set will also assist the effort of developing an integrated planning process for the optimal use of the potential of formal, nonformal, and informal education in a society and for the coordination of the educational activities of different agencies so that their results are mutually supportive and avoid duplication and waste of resources. Finally, a deliberate attempt would be made to reach the poor within each of the groups assigned priority. Compared with the rich, the poor in the developing world--despite clear examples of the economic benefits of basic education--have generally remained unschooled and have therefore reaped very little benefit from the educational process. This has mainly been because opportunities were not available to the poor. But even when opportunities have been available, they have often been neglected, for several reasons. On the whole, what was taught was academic and did not seem to be relevant to the way of life of the poor. Even though individuals around them were earning more as a result of their education, the poor saw no direct link with specific jobs on the market, and this encouraged rural- urban migration, with all its subsequent consequences. Moreover, the direct costs of schooling were very high--textbooks, writing materials, uniforms, lunch, and transportation all cost money that was needed at home for food or other physical necessities. Similarly, the time needed for attending classes could be better used to earn more to satisfy these immediate needs. Furthermore, child labor made an important contribution to the family's enterprises and welfare even if it was not compensated. In sum, the education- al proc.c,s was often too long, its timing inappropriate, and its possible outcome too long-term and abstract for those with immediate, urgent needs. - 45 - Literacy requirements also influenced the response of the poor, since the majority were illiterate. Most basic education projects tend to accommodate only two kinds of persons: those who are able and willing to give time and energy to become literate and those who are already literate. But those illiterates who want to learn only life or production skills have great difficulty finding projects to accommodate their needs. Yet this third group is probably the largest. Some policy interventions are likely to increase the chances of the poor to benefit from basic education. Delivering education with content directly relevant to the material welfare and increased productivity of the poor could in part offset the direct and opportunity costs to the family of attending educational programs. Such activities include instruction on land use and crop rotation, cottage crafts, and the skills of fishing and fish culture. Adopting a flexible school calendar synchronized with peak periods of activity in agriculture also reduces the opportunity costs of education. Subsidizing instructional materials (including radios) and distributing them as widely as possible could lessen the direct costs of education to consumers. Locating new schools in places where the poor reside and providing stipends to the poorest in society while they are being educated would improve the chance of the poor?s access to basic education. Strengthening the institutional ties between the educational system and the employers who will use its products suggests the responsiveness of the society to basic education for all its members. There' are many ways priority can be assigned for receiving basic education.- 1/ The selected population could be cut into many segments: by economic group--for example, the small landholders; by development targets--for example, the total population covered by rural development projects; by age--for example, by the criterion of greatest potential contribution to development; by occupation--for example, the core that provides maximum multiplier effort; by sex, ethnic, or geographical origin--for example, preferring women, nomads, or landless rural labor; or by socio- economic status--for example, selecting the poorest of the poor. - 46 - Two criteria are paramount: the potential of a group's contribution to develqpment and its need. The first criterion suggests educating those whose education will provide wide benefits to the society over a long period of time--for example, mothers and girls of primary school age. This criterion also suggests preference for those who have skills--such as weavers, fishermen, artisans--but are dependent on others (because of an absence of basic education) to speak for them, to represent them, and to defend their rights. The second criterion will include those who are least albe to realize adequate income--landless peasants, marginal and small farmers, and sharecroppers--and perhaps all those with incomes less than one-quarter of the country's GNP per capita. Elements of a Strategy In order to illustrate what might be expected in those countries where the spread of basic education is a major developmental concern, four country groupings are proposed that are based on certain common characteristics that will allow some generalization in policy actions. Such groupings are not to be treated as ironclad, and the distinctions underlying their uniqueness should be interpreted liberally because of the wide cultural and economic diversity of the countries. Policy and decision makers in the aid group and in the developing countries will be able to improve the quality of policy and operational decisions by better understanding the points of similarity and divergence that characterize these countries, by gaining from each other's experience, and by recognizing the crucial distinctions that underline the countries' particularity. - 47 - For countries with relatively low educational level and low per capita income (for example, Sahelian countries) The critical issues facing the spread of basic education in this group of countries are: - reducing the high and capital-intensive costs of delivering education, which reaches only a small fraction of the population but accounts for more than one-third of the educational budget-- mainly in the form of teachers' salaries equivalent to 8 to 12 times of GNP per capita; the chief obstacle to spreading basic education is therefore education's economic costs; - allocating efficiently the extremely low stock of qualified manpower, which is in demand in a number of sector other than education, for manning the countries' relatively weak administrative and institutional structure (mainly in urban areas); and - rationalizing the use of external assistance, both financial and technical, on which these countries heavily depend for under- taking any form of educational and economic development. Since resources are limited, these countries face two major choices: to design programs that would primarily benefit the school-age group (ages six to fifteen or to design programs that would benefit the adults. The economic rationale for investing in primary schools is clear: compared with higher levels of education, the returns are many times higher even if the waiting period for reaping benefits is longer. Primary education has also an important economic payoff for small farmers. Such economic justification may be less firm for adult basic education largely because of the nascent stage of these countries' economic and social development. In the case of farmers, the economic payoffs to educational investments, although immediate, - 48 - may not be high enough when compared with possible trade-offs for physical inputs such as fertilizer, water for irrigation, or improved seed variaties. This may often lead to a preference for input services over education. For this group of countries, two principal ways may be pursued to design and implement programs. A step-by-step, phased approach or a selective package. Under the first option, each part of the population would receive some educational services at every step. This approach would be expanded as resources become available and the institutional infrastructure to support these services is broadened. This means introducing different elements of basic education gradually from the urban areas to the more remote rural regions. Under the second option, the full package of basic education could be directed to selected priority groups across the countries, with the emphasis on the family unit, allocation of elements, and access to life and production made earlier. Participation in primary schooling would be broadened, perhaps to a level satisfactory to provide the "critical mass" required for development and for adequate administration and manageme,t of the government and to allow acceptable representation of all socioeconomic groups within a given country. Universal primary education, even if a heavy dose of external assistance were available, might be unaffordable in the short run. External assistance beyond what is needed could foster economic dependence, or inequities in distribution, both antidevelopmental forces. Moreover, primary school expan- sion beyond the needs of the modern sector in these societies may mean the diversion of resources to costly formal education and deflection of scarce resources from the sectors where the need for investment is far greater or the returns to the communities might be much higher. - 49 - Basic education of those having no access to primary schooling is being offered in many countries through nonformal methods that impart skills for self-employment and prepare them to enter the informal economic sectors. This process could be encouraged and strengthened. Community organizations such as cooperatives and youth clubs that combine the processes of acquisition of skills and opportunity to earn would be fostered and credits would be granted to establish them within their environment. Radio, because of its low per unit cost, would be intensively used lo promote good health, so.und nutrition, and agricultural productivity, and its potential for actual classroom teaching would be considered. Since financial resources are desperately needed for all subsectors of education in these countries and the needs for development within each are acute, it would perhaps be prudent to earmark the possible increments in public educational resources exclusively to basic education, rather than to switch the current funds from higher levels of education. Role of aid agencies. The aid agencies could substantially increase the total magnitude of its assistance in this group of countries and direct its activities to broa&On the services for meeting basic needs. But care should be taken that heavy doses of assistance and recurrent expenses do not foster dependence and inhibit the process of self-reliance. Priorities for action could be based on the assessment of: (i) the countries' important needs requiring external assistance; (ii) the administrations' capacity to absorb assistance; (iii) the comparative advantage of each aid agency in making significant contributions and the homogeneity of the services provided. Although these criteria could govern the aid policies in all developing countries, they appear to be of particular importance in countries with a low resource base. The first criterion would lead to - 50 - identification of programs having a wide distributive effect and in which technical and managerial support could improve traditional practices. The second criterion implies that cooperation could be considered in areas where there is a strong commitment to act indicated by the existence of locally initiated programs. The third criterion suggests avoiding duplica- tion among the activities of the multilateral and bilateral organizations and ensuring cooperation within all U.N. agencies (such as Unesco, ILO, and FAO). The fourth criterion, of more operational nature, would ask assistance in the form of sizable and homogeneous packages that would ensure efficient delivery of services with minimal management and supervision costs, For countries with relatively low educational level but high per capita income (for example, countries in the Middle East) The critical issues facing basic education in-this group of countries are: - broadening the participation of children in primary schools and improving the representation of girls and other dis- advantaged groups, especially those from rural areas; - preparing unschooled youth for employment within a rapidly emerging technology, mainly in the modern sector; and - equipping adults with relevant knowledge that allows them to benefit from the services brought by developments in the modern sec . )'4, In these countries, the chief constraints for basic education are not so much ito economic costs but the availability of the requisite manpower to provide such services. Because financial resources could be made available with least sacrifice, and expatriate manpower could be procured, these courntries could perhaps opt for a phased-in programming. Benefiting from the experience of phased introduction of a full package of services and formative evaluation, - 51 - they would be better prepared to replicate over a successive period the experiences of less-affluent countries on a regional basis and, later, nationwide. Phased programming would also allow the majority of the neediest population to adjust gradually to the rapid pace of development and give the planners the much-needed breathing spell to produce qualified manpower from the system. This will mean, in the immediate term, priority for those sub- sectors that assist the development of basic education--such as the training of teachers, paraprofessionals and the like. The priority group for these countries would be school-age children and unschooled youth. Primary schools would be expanded as rapidly as the supply of teachers would permit. For the unschooled youth, there would be several ways to foster skills. Preparation for modern-sector employment could occur mainly through vocational training and technical institutions and is most likely to be successful when the training objectives are clearly specified. Packaging traditional village trades in such a way that they are easily acquired could also assist the prospect of self-employment. Selective functional literacy programs would be instituted for the economically active population within the development projects, primarily to determine the efficacy of the programs and the possibilities of replication nationwide. Although radio would be used widely to spread life skills, the potential of instructional television would also be explored. Given the existence and availability of entertainment TV, the incremental cost per individual for instructional television could be less and its visual aspect could have greater effect. Role of aid agencies. Achieving simultaneously rapid expansion, quality improvement, and the restructuring of delivery system where necessary and appropriate would require a stronger, more articulated and sophisticated planning and managerial structure in these countries. Because many of the tasks are - 52 - not only larger in magnitude but also new in character, large shifts in qualified manpower would be necessary. But such dislocations of manpower should be overseen so that (i) the programs the manpower supports are respon- sive to the short- and long-term needs of fostering basic education; (ii) the planned expansion and the innovative technologies are qualitatively manageable and are consistent with the country's socioeconomic development; and (iii) the long-term costs of such shifts would be within the limits of the countries' projected income. For countries with relatively high educational level but low per capita income (for example, countries in South Asia) Many of these countries are quite close to the achievement of universal primary education, but the critical issues facing them are: - acute inefficiency of the primary school system, the irrelevance of the curriculum, and the inequity of access; - extremely low levels of life and production skills among the rural adult population; and - chronic underfinancing of education. The chief obstacle to spreading basic education in this group of countries, despite their poverty, is perhaps not the economic costs but the sociopolitical realities that tend to perpetuate the interest of the privileged. The education industry costs very little, mainly because of the poor salaries of the teachers (at best about double the GNP per capita) in these countries. The incremental costs for delivering a complete package of basic education to the underprivileged would perhaps be one-third more than what is being ear- marked for education in the budget, which is about 10 to 12 percent of the total public expenditure. Besides augmenting the share of education in the government budget, there is also scope to redistribute more efficiently the existing educational resources. - 53 - In this group, basic education could be viewed as a prerequisite for achieving vital socioeconomic goals (for example, in family planning and rural development). Adults would receive the absolute priority. Since the majority of adults are illiterate, oral communication through extension workers and unemployed or underemployed primary school graduates should be preferred over programs for mass literacy. Direct contact by multipurpose workers to extend knowledge in the fields of health, family planning, and nutrition should be sought and could be supplemented by radio. This should serve two purposes: first, the unemployed and the underemployed primary school graduates should find an opportunity to use their potential talents and a chance of becoming assets to the society; and second, the rural youth, by beconing the conveyers of the new knowledge, should be able to override the age-old skepticism of adults. For the small farmers, the intensive "training-and-visit method" should guide them through a series of planned activities and should perhaps be preferred over diffused extension programs. Selective literacy programs should be initiated by organizations that are likely to use the potential of the neoliterates effectively. This also implies having access to postliteracy materials through rural libraries and local newspapers. Role of aid agencies. The primary objective of external aid should be improving the efficiency of the primary education system and retaining those who are already enrolled. Coordinated measures should include more frequent and better-quality teacher supervision, wider availability and distribution of instructional materials and textbooks, and increased relevance of the curriculum to rural needs. The aid group could seek broader equity by limiting the new opportunities mainly to those whose education would distribute benefits widely. For example, the women could be targeted for life skills and rural - 54 - craft training, the youth for rural farm and nonfarm skills, and adult farmers for agricultural information. For countries with relatively high educational level and high per capita income (for example, countries in East Asia and Latin America) The critical issues facing basic education in this group of countries are: - narrowing the wide gap in educational opportunities between rich and poor and the quality of instruction among the various regions of the country, which in part reflect the socio- economic disparities prevailing within the society; - coordinating and rationalizing a multitude of training opportunities to increase accessibility and to provide greater relevance of training to the needs of the economy; - linking the delivery of basic education with other socio- economic investments; and - improving implementation and administrative efficiency and removing jurisdictional obstacles that restrict the flow of available funds among various levels of government. Given the political will, these problems are surmountable, and substantive measures to overcome them are already in progress. In these countries, priority should be accorded to adolescents and adults, combined with a balanced effort to provide wider schooling opportunities for the underprivileged children of the economically backward regions. Nonformal programs should equip the youth for employment in the informal economic sector, possibly leading to self-employment, while the rationalization of the existing training institutions should lead to better preparation for employment in the modern sector. Adult literacy training should be encouraged and, to the extent possible, located in areas where literacy and numeracy are - 55 - obvious conditions for full participation and benefit in the regions' socioeconomic development. In primary education, an observable trend in some of these countries has been to lengthen the period of primary schooling to about nine years, thus aligning basic education with an advance stage of the countries' economic development, notwithstanding that a significant proportion of children continue to be deprived after a minimal schooling of about six years. Although lengthening the primary cycle could perhaps be validated on the basis of manpower needs, the pursuance of this objective, without first fulfilling the basic needs of the underprivileged, negates the principle of equitable justice. Moreover, reducing inequalities should assist, and not deter, socioeconomic progress in the long run. Role of aid agencies The primary obje-'tive of assistance offered should be: (i) to achieve equity by expanding opportunities and by improving quality in primary schooling for the disadvantaged; (ii" co design measures that would give basic education to the poor, especially that would assist them in acquiring productive skills and improving the quality of their life; and (iii) to develop educational activities for adults that would raise their awareness and assist thema in gaining access to basic goods and services. Programs that Prefer the Poor External assistance for education in developing countries amounted to about US$2.8 billion in 1975. About 20 percent of the total external aid-- that is, US$550 million--was for basic education worldwide. But the incremental costs of delivering basic education to poor families by the year 2000 is estimated at $8 billion a year. It is arguable that basic educational needs should largely be met from domestic resources, using scarce foreign assistance for sectors that are more demanding of foreign exchange and foreign technology. - 56 - Yet in the poorest countries, even with a strong political commitment and with the imaginative use of domestic resources, meeting basic educational needs within a reasonable period of time will be impossible without more external assistance than those nations can currently expect to receive. Many of them already spend up to 11 percent of GNP on education. In the face of new demands and the inability of some poor countries to meet these demands, further augmentati-n of educat,onal aid by external agencies would appear, prima facie, a priority. Furthermore, new criteria ought to be established for the allocation of increased aid flows to the needy countries. Not all the poor countries may qualify (see chart 3). The criteria for lending--in addition to economic growth, prospects, and aid worthiness--should include an assessment of the country's willingness to satisfy educational and other basic needs as equitably as possible and as- quickly as its administrative and managerial competence will allow. Among those who qualify, preferences could be given to those that i * / Pakistan * Indonesia I M / , * Bangladesh I 20 ali o Benin * Rwanda 20 * Sierra Leone Zaire Yemen AR Z 0 Ethiopia *UgandaLeoh SrLak Upper Volta * Burundi . Malawi Lesotho Sri Lanka O I - I I a I I 11 i I I 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 SUMMARY PROFILE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL ENROLLMENT RATES AND LITERACY RATES, 1960 NOTE: For each country X denotes a summary profile of primary school enrollment rates and literacy rates in 1960. A country with universal literacy and full primary enrollment would have 200 points. Sri Lanka, for example, would have about 156 points. The Y shows the actual improvement in points in the profile between 1960 and 1975. For example, it shows that Somalia had the most rapid progress (90 percentage points). Z indicates the gap between a country's present profile and the achievement of universal literacy and full primary enrollment. The cluster of countries in the left hand corner suggests the priority target group for basic education projects in the low income countries. World Bank -22618 - 57 - ignorance and poverty create a mutually reinforcing cycle of bondage. The time has come for the developmental planners of the world to remove these shackles through the universalization of basic education. - 58 - ANNEX 1: DERIVATION OF COST EXTIMATES FOR MEETING BASIC EDUCATIONAL NEEDS OF THOSE IN ABSOLUTE POVERTY 1. Various cost estimates have been made in the Bank to assess whether a basic education strategy is within the realm of financial possibility. Hultin's calculation of the additional cost for delivery of communication skills to the urban poor--four years of primary education to school-age children and short literacy training to adults--was about $37 billion (in 1974 prices).l/ Burki estimated the costs of providing communication and living skills to all those in developing countries who lack basic education.2/ He assumed that the incremental costs of providing them with production skills would be borne by employers and would not need to be met from the public budget. This exercise gave a figure of $246 billion (in 1975 preces). 2. The estimates given in the present paper refer to costs of delivering a total basic education package of communication, living and production skills to all families living in absolute poverty in the developing countries. Therefore, it is likely to represent the minimum costs of extending education to the poor (in 1977 prices). 3. Target Population. The number of poor households is estimated at 117 million in 1975 and is likely to increase to 131 million in year 2000.3/ In our exercise we include all those families (a) who are now considered as below the poverty line, (b) the new entrants joining the poverty group be- tween 1975 and 2000, and (c) those who moved out of the poverty group (possibly due to basic education) during the projection period. This yields an estimate of 144 million families: TABLE Al: ESTIMATED NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS IN ABSOLUTE POVERTY REQUIRING BASIC EDUCATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ('000) Region 1975 1980 1990 2000 East Africa 6942 7827 10103 13328 West Arrica 3742 4343 5204 6165 East Asia & Pacific 16991 18482 17664 17463 South Asia 59890 63647 70054 73590 EMENA 10144 10813 11335 11076 LAC 18985 20063 21730 22356 Total 116,694 125,175 136,090 143,978 Source: Churchill, Anthony. "Basic Needs in Shelter," October 1978. Note: Poor households include all those currently considered as on or below the poverty line, the new entrants to the poverty group during 1975-2000, and those who move out of the poverty group during this period. 1/ See Phillips, "Education and Training Programs and Projects for the Urban Poor," Education Department, World BanTk, 1978. 2/ Burki and Voorhoei-e; "Global Estimates for Meeting Basic Needs: Background Paper," World Bank, August 1977. 3/ Churchill, "Basic Needs in Shelter," World Bank, mimeo, October 1978. - 59 - 4. Learning Needs of a Poor Family. Table A2 denotes the desirable components of basic education to be delivered to a family over a 20 year period. This is shown, for cost purposes only, as equivalent to 31 pupil- years of primary education. The assumptions underlying these equivalencies are as follows: the average poor family consists of six persons, of whom two are of primary school-age, two are youth who have bypassed the schooling period, and two are adults. It is assumed that the children of primary school age will need the total basic education package, but that the youths will acquire functional literacy during their training for production skills. Among the adults, the women are assumed to be more interested in living skills, while the male adults are interested in production skills. These requirements are expressed as units of learning in Column E of Table A2. TAHL.EA2: ASSUIMIED uASMC E-DUCATION REQUIREMENTS BY A FAMILY OVER A 20 YEAR PERIOD 1980-2000 lasic Educatlon Skills Education Needs Wititin a Fanily Costs as a Total cuts R,!quired pupil Total multiple of as a iNultiplu of School-age Youtli Adult Total memubers y.-ars for each pupil primary one pupil year childr:ct 2 2 2 6 skill years education of prfliary *Idt:erlon A B c D E F c H I 'ubttitilti:u atioti: 1prlndry 2 - - i 8.0 16.0 1 16.0 Literacy training - 1 0.5 1.5 0.5 0.7 1 0.7 LIviaig: lirect tinstructLon and niass nmedla - 2 1 3.0 0.3 0.9 2 1.8 Pro,lucctil.: 2 2 1 5.0 1.0 5.0 2.5 12.5 Tutal nuilLs required 4 5 2.5 11.5 - - - 31.0 5. The pupil-years required to attain each skill are given in Column F. For primary education, we hope that with a significant improvement in internal efficiency only, 8 pupil-years would be required for each successful learner, in contrast to the more than 12 pupil-years typically spent at present for a 6 year primary education. Column H denotes the cost per pupil-year for each skill as a multiple of the cost of primary schooling. Since educators for living and production skills are likely to be more qualified than primary school teachers, and to earn higher incomes, and also because the physical facilities for these types of education may require more sophisticated equip- ment and instructional materials, their unit costs are assumed to be 2 and 2.5 times those of primary education respectively. Column I therefore denotes the total costs of providing basic education to a family as a multiple of the costs for one pupil year of primary education. It is estimated as equivalent to 31 pupil-years over a 20 year period. 6. Estimation of Costs by Region. The chief determinant for calculating unit costs was the average primary school teacher's salary in each region. (Table A3). This has been derived from the average GNP per capita of the region, and an index expressing the average teacher's salary as a multiple - 60 - of GNP per capita. It is assumed that additional expenses for learning materials, media, management would be equivalent to 18 percent of the teacher's salary, and that capital expenditures would represent another 7 percent of the teacher's salary (amortized over 15 year period). The teacher-pupil ratio is estimated at 1:50. Column H of Table A3 denotes the the unit cost and Column K the total cost for delivering basic education to poor families in each region. The total cost is in the order of $156 billion. TABLE AII GI.MLAL COSTS FOR BASfC EDUCATION FOR FAMIT1.T1ES TN AuaOT.UTR rnVP3RLY (US Dollars '000) Teachers' Cost for Average salAry (T.S.) bw.aogement coac Coscr Reglunb t;NI per as Teaclhers' & je.rsaj1ai Capical per year per Total capita msulclpLe of salany materiuls costa per Unit family poor Tutal (a vera geL C/,.a l I ta averaie) 18% of T.S. 72 of T.S. teacher cowts e 3i famstles Ciats (fil t housends) A B C D E . F C 11 I J K( SouIth AsIa 140 2 280 50 20' 350 7.0 217 73600 15,971 Eatit Asla 850 2.5 2125 383 149 2657 53.0 1643 17500 28.752 EfIL11A 890 3.5 3115 560 219 3894 78.0 2418 11000 26,598 Ea;at Africa 250 7 1750 315 122 2187 44.0 1364 13300 18.141 P/est Af rica 430 7- 3010 540 210 3760 75.0 2325 6200 14,415 Lacin AwLrica 960 3 , 2880 518 362 3760 75.0 2325 22400 52,080 TOTAL 155.957 - 61 - ANNEX 2: CHANGING DIRECTIONS IN EDUCATIONAL LENDING 1. The changing character of Bank lending for education may be traced through an examination of projects from 1963 to 1978. The substance of the 180 projects so far programmed is one indication of the lenders' and borrowers' educational concerns. From these the Bank's policy direction appear clearly. Over this fifteen year period the movement is for a balanced support for traditional modes of education aimed at traditional students and innovative projects which consciously attempt to meet the basic human needs of non-traditional participants in education. The early projects made substan- tial investments in professional facilities at the secondary and university levels for "manpower" in the "modern sector." Later projects widen the concept of development beyond economic produ-ct,i o to ncludeG th welfare of human beings and the elimination of the worst forms of poverty. The Emerging Pattern 2. The pattern began to change in the early 1970's, when loans increas- ingly went for primary education, adult education, nonformal rural training, and out-of-school vocational education. An interest in the mass media appeared as a means for reaching large, unschooled audiences with information useful to daily living. 3. These early attempts to reshape education to alleviate human need at the traditional levels of society were given policy voice in the Education Sector Working Paper for 1974. In its Preface, President McNamara provided an agenda for that education "without which the mass of the people cannot achieve a fuller, happier, and more productive life." The agenda was posed in the form of the following three questions: - How can educational systems be reshaped to help the poorest segments of society? - How can education contribute to rural development, and thus respond to the needs and aspirations of the vast majority of the poor living in villages? - How can educational opportunities be made more equal in order to promote social mobility in countries where educational systems have heretofore favored urban dwellers and the relatively rich? 4. The type of education that would be required to answer these questions, should: - Provide every individual with a basic mimimum education as soon as financial resources and the priorities of development permit; - Develop skills collectively in response to specific and urgent needs, by training the right people, both urban and rural, for the right jobs-- both in the modern and traditional sectors; - Formulate education policies which respond flexibly to the need to develop educational systems (nonformal, informal, and formal), so that the specific requirements of each society might be met; and _ - 62 - - Extend educational opportunities throughout the educational system to those underprivileged groups who have been thwarted in their desire to enter the mainstream of their country's economic and social life. This must include more equitable access to education for the poor, the ill-fed, women, rural dwellers, and must provide as well, a better chance to advance from the classroom to the place of work. 5., Following this policy redirection new types of basic education projects appeared with increasing frequency. Loans for primary education became common. Projects in youth training appeared. Industrial training centers were funded and nonformal education in rural activities came on line. Agricultural extension and cooperative programs became subjects worthy of loans, as did rural health projects. Out-of-school programs generally became respectable, and programs that linked school and community appeared in impressive numbers. The qualitative aspects of- primary education also drew attention, and projects to enhance the skills of teachers, develop the curriculum, and produce improved instructional materials were sanctioned. 6. During FY70-74 Bank assistance in basic education was about 10 percent of total educational lending. It is estimated that by the end of FY78-79 the amount will have risen to 40 percent. Forecasts for FY79-83 indicate that support for basic education is likely to account for up to 48 percent of the total education lending, of which less than half will be for primary education. 7. These increasing commitments to basic education are reflected in future estimates for all geographic regions served by the Bank as can be seen in the table below. Profile of ProJected Education Lendins PT1179-83 (in willioam) TOTAL WEST AFRICA EAST AFRICA LATIN AMERICA EMENA SOUTH ASIA EAST ASIA Amt. x Amt. X Amt. % Amt. % Amt. % Amt. Z Amt. % Basic Education 1436 48 81 34 191 50 411 81 326 41 103 59 324 36 Primary 715 24 35 1S 134 35 242 4b 56 7 86 49 162 18 Nonformal 721 24 46 19 57 15 169 33 270 34 17 10 162 18 Intermediate 1015 34 122 52 156 40 54 11 238 30 58 33 387 43 Higher 545 18 32 14 39 10 39 .8 231 29 14 8 190 21 To.tal 2996 100 235 .100 386 100 504 10C 795 100 175 100 901 100 8. In terms of dollar amounts, loan totals for basic education not unexpectedly show similar trends. In FY70-79 it was estimated to be $642 million while during FY79-83 it is projected to be $1.5 billion. 9. Out of 180 Bank education projects, 75 are in basic education and the majority of them have been formulated since 1975. An assessment of all of these projects indicate that the orientation is toward basic learning, the clients are from all age groups, most time frames are short, and stated instructional goals are practical and work oriented. In terms of economy - 63 - and manpower, these projects seek to give education and educators a developmental bias, to improve non-farm rural skills and employment and to test low cost options for providing education. In terms of polity and policy, the projects seek to extend educational opportunities to the rural sector, recognize the claims of out-of-school youth and adults to educational services, to give education a practical orientation and improve its linkages with employment. In terms of education and training, the projects focus quite sharply on those who help to extend the functions of primary schools into activities supportive of rural development, create alternative structures to serve non-school groups, and develop effective and efficient alternative modes for delivering basic education. The Innovative Features 10. Now we-highlight some features in present Bank projects which appear to be worth replicating. The discussion will be organized aroung ' six structural models: primary schools; extended primary schools; skills centers; extended skills centers; mass media; and alternative institutions, which the Bank has used for expanding basic education. Primary Schools 11. Efforts to upgrade primary schooling must not neglect the fact that all the parts must function well together, and each make its contribution, if the system is to produce the desired results. Even strong teachers cannot succeed without adequate instructional materials; excellent instruc- tional materials are of no avail if teachers do not know how to use them. The objective of the Indonesia III primary school quality improvement program is simultaneously to upgrade curriculum development, materials distribution, in-service teacher training, and teacher supervision, so as to strengthen primary schooling as a system. Extended Primary Schools 12. This model assumes a variety of forms, including new and expanded uses of primary school facilities and the addition of "practical" subjects to the primary school curriculum. Teachers are given new roles with out-of- school youth and adults, and become community workers, etc. In the Kenya 3rd education project (764a-KE), the primary school curriculum is to be reoriented to include more practical content and the school itself, including the teachers, is to become the main element in village development. At the same time the school is expected to improve its effectiveness in teaching the basics. 13. The Sudan II project (484a-SU) proposes to make the primary schools the focal point for village community life and development, enabling them to supply health services and provide stores for improved seeds, as well as offering courses to yough and adults in agriculture, domestic science and village crafts directed by specialists. 14. One of the objectives of the Mali project (140a-MLI) is to identify, explore and develop economically viable alternatives to the present system of primary schooling. The project supports a study, inspired and directed by a Malian specialist, for extending basic education to the population not served by the existing education and training system. This study, one of the first of its kind to be supported by Bank financing, will provide evaluative and experimental data which should help in the design and implementation of - 64 - similar projects in other countries, especially in West Africa. Skill Centers and Their Extensinns 15. Some skill-centers concentrate solely on skill training and development. Some add other elements of basic education for out-of-school youth and adults. It is good educational practice to integrate related learning; it is also good vocational practice--since tradesmen who are literate are likely to get on better than those who are not. Finally, a learning program which is designed to lead to employment should help to counter unfavorable comparisons of this mode of education with the regular school system. A number of projects fit this mode. They include the Yemen Arab Republic II project which provides for basic education along with skill training for adolescents and adults in rural areas. The Senegal II project concentrates on school leavers and unschooled adolescents, ages 12-15, and blends practical agriculture/skill training with literacy and numeracy. The Benin Rural Youth training program (701a-DA) provides young men and women who have not attended school or who have dropped out with instruction in agriculture, reading, arithmetic, handicrafts, health, nutrition and childcare. 16. With respect to centers which concentrate solely on skill training, there are two noteworthy developments. The first is an effort to move to a level of skills beyond the manual and technical type. The Tanzania V project provides village management- training for cooperative personnel in support of rural programs, recognizing that administrative skills at the local level can be as critical as technical skills. The second noteworthy effort is to place skill training within the full cycle of production from procurement of materials, processing and fabrication to marketing. The Botswana I project (1013a-BT) provides for the expansion of the Botswana Youth Brigades where yough are organized into trade "guilds" which work with all phases of their trade. This project includes the establishment of a National Brigade Develop- ment Center and provides places for an additional 1500 primary shcool leavers. Mass Media 17. Two projects to study the feasibility of using the mass media for basic education deserve comment. The Liberia II project (1036b-LBR) provides funds for determining the feasibility of using radio for formal and nonformal education. The Philippines educational project (p-2550-PH) will develop and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of two approaches for improving primary education: broadcasts to teachers for in-service training and direct broad- casts into classrooms for children. Alternative Institutions 18. Two Bank projects use alternative institutions for basic education. The Mauritania I project studied Koranic schools on an experimental basis to assess their ability to undertake enlarged functions. In an Ethiopian project priests in the Ethiopian Orthodox church were trained in practical and applied subjects in support of the church's involvement in general and economic development. RECENT PAPERS IN THIS SERIES No. TITLE OF PAPER AUTHOR 423 Rethinking Artisanal Fisheries Development: D. Emmerson (consultant) Western Concepts, Asian Experience 424 Transition toward More Rapid and Labor- B. de Vries Intensive Industrial Development: The Case of the Philippines 425 Britain's Pattern of Specialization in V. Cable Manufactured Goods with Developing Countries I. Rebelo and Trade Protection 426 Worker Adjustment to Liberalized Trade: Costs G. Glenday and Assistance Policies G. Jenkins J. Evans 427 On the Political Economy of Protection in H. Glismann Germany F. Weiss 428 Italian Commercial Policies in the 1970s E. Grilli 429 Effects of Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade on C. Hamilton Prices, Employment, and Imports: The Case of the Swedish Textile and Clothing Industry 430 Output and Employment Changes in a "Trade J. Mutti Sensitive" Sector: Adjustment in the U.S. M. Bale Footwear Industry 431 The Political Economy of Protection in Belgium P. Tharakan 432 European Community Protection Against Manufactured E. Verrydt Imports from Developing Countries: A Case Study J. Waelbroeck in the Political Economy of Protection 433 Agrarian Reforms in Developing Rural Economies A. Braverman Characterized by Interlinked Credit and Tenancy T.N. Srinivasan Markets (consultant) 434 How Segmented is the Bogota Labour Market? G. Fields (consultant) 435 Pirate Subdivisions and the Market for A. Carroll Residential Lots in Bogota No. TITLE OF PAPER AUTHOR 436 Exchange Rate Adjustments under Generalized R.M. Bautista Currency Floating: Comparative Analysis among Developing Countries 437 The Newly-Industrializing Developing Countries B. Balassa after the Oil Crisis 438 The Process of Industrial Development and B. Balassa Alternative Development Strategies 439 Monitoring Rural Development in East Asia G. Deboeck R. Ng 440 Higher Education in Developing Countries: G. Psacharopoulos A Cost-Benefit Analysis (consultant) 441 Policy Interventions for Technological C. Cooper (consultant) Innovation in Developing Countries 442 An Economic and Political Analysis of Alternative J. de Melo Trade Adjustment Policies in Three Archetype S. Robinson Developing Economies 443 A General Equilibrium Analysis of Foreign K. Dervis Exchange Shortages in a Developing Economy J. de Melo S. Robinson 444 Adoption of Agricultural Innovations in G. Feder Developing Countries: A Survey R. Just, D. Silberman (consultants) 445 Empirical Justification for Infant Industry L. Westphal Protection 446 The Political Economy of Specialised Farm J. Von Pischke Credit Institutions P. Heffernan, D. Adams (consultants) 447 Measuring Urban Malnutrition and Poverty: R. Mohan, M. Wagner A Case Study of Bogota and Cali, Colombia J. Garcia (consultant) 448 Aggregate Demand and Macroeconomic Imbalances in W. Grais Thailand: Simulations with the SIAMI Model 449 The Policy Experience of Twelve Less Developed B. Balassa Countries, 1973-1978