Development and Education

COLETTE CHABBOTT AND FRANCISCO O. RAMIREZ

Using considerable literature in cross-cultural education, Colette Chabbott and Francisco

O. Ramirez examine the relationship between development and education. In this selection,
they look at the effects of education on economic development and social and political
progress in less developed countries as well as the effects of development on the growth of
schooling.
Questions to consider as you read this selection:
1. What are the effects of education on economic, social, and political development?
2. How does development affect growth in educational institutions?
3. How does the systems approach help explain trends in development and education
around the world?

MECHANISMS FOR DIFFUSING of rarified ideas about progress and justice

BLUEPRINTS OF EDUCATION AND into rational discourse about education and
DEVELOPMENT development at the global level. Second,
we describe the formalization of that
In the post-World War II era, common discourse into international development
blue-prints emphasizing education for organizations. Finally, we look at the role
development have emerged and been of international development professionals
rapidly disseminated. The result has been in institutionalizing and modifying that
an increase in common educational discourse about education and
principles, policies, and even practices development.
among countries with varying national Figure 1 outlines our argument, starting
characteristics. Attempts to explain the from the premise that world ideas about
growth of educational isomorphism have progress and justice translate into discourse
emphasized coercion, imitation, and about development and, more specifically,
conformity to norms (Berman, 1983; about education and development. This
Berman, 1997; Meyer, Nagel, & Snyder, rationalizing discourse facilitates the rise of
1993). Missing from most of this literature both networks of development
is an analysis of the mechanisms that professionals and international
generate this isomorphism. This reading development organizations. These
addresses this gap in the following three professionals and organizations, in turn,
sub-sections. First, we trace the translation sharpen and standardize the dis-course by
coordinating activities that showcase international, national, and local non-
discourse. International conferences are one governmental organizations (NGOs) in
example of these types of activities; international conferences. They also
between 1944 and 1990, various UN support NGO efforts to monitor the
organizations sponsored more than sixteen implementation of declarations and national
global conferences on specific areas of plans of action at the national and local
development, such as family planning, levels. With the advent of new, inexpensive
water and sanitation, and food. Each of electronic communications, local NGOs
these conferences brought together not just can publicize national plans at the national
national delegations, but also scores of and local level and draw international
international development organizations. attention when national governments fail to
By the time of the first Education for implement those plans (see, for example,
All Conference in 1990, standard products Social Watch, 1996). Fisher (1998) suggests
of these conferences included non-binding this may lead to tighter coupling between
declarations and frameworks for action. international norms and action at the sub-
These declarations and their associated national level.
frameworks typically invoke the highest The following sub-sections describe the
ideals of progress and justice, thereby process shown in Figure 1 in greater detail
making it practically mandatory for as relates to education and development.
national delegations to endorse them. Given Note that most arrows in Figure 1 are two-
the prominent role played by ideals in both way, indicating that these nodes are
the declaration and framework for action, reciprocal and iterative. In general, over
the national plans developed subsequent to time, links between education and
the conference often incorporated expanded development grow tighter and more
definitions of human rights, citizenship, and institutionalized; the meaning of
development. development and, by extension, of
For most of the post-war period this education broadens; and emphasis shifts
conference-declaration-national plan cycle from an exclusive concern with collective
contributed to a significant amount of loose economic growth to incorporate individual
coupling (Meyer, Nagel, & Snyder, 1993; rights and justice.
& Snyder, 1989) between national
education policies produced in response to Expanding Development Discourse and
international norms and, on the other hand, Development Organizations
the implementation of these policies at the Since the end of World War II, a world
sub-national level. In recent years, culture emphasizing progress and justice
however, the governmental international (Fagerlind & Saha, 1983; Meyer, Boli,
development organizations increasingly Thomas, & Ramirez, 1997; Robertson,
recruit and support the participation of 1992) produced a rationalizing discourse
about development, and, over time, standard of living….and to the
constructed a central role for education in continuous improvement of living
the development process. The most conditions. The States Parties will
legitimate actors became nation-states with take appropriate steps to ensure the
broad national and individual development realization of this right, recognizing
goals, and individual citizens whose to this effect the essential importance
education was linked to their [own personal of international co-operation based
development and the development of their on free consent (United Nations,
nation-state. 1966, our emphasis).
An expanded definition of These documents helped to create a
development derives from the United world of "developed" and "developing"
Nations' (UN) 1948 Universal Declaration countries, with the former encouraged to
of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948). provide the latter with "foreign aid" or
The Declaration makes explicit each "development assistance." Originally,
individual's rights to a minimum standard multilateral organizations, such as the UN,
of living but does not specify how that expected to be the main conduits of this
standard will be ensured. development assistance. The advent of the
Cold War, however, circumvented the UN's
Article 25, Para 1. Everyone has the coordinating mandate (Black, 1986); by the
right to a standard of living adequate 1950s, many Western countries began
for the health and well being of channeling development assistance through
himself (sic) and of his family, primarily religious and NGOs already
including food, clothing, housing, and established in former colonies, a practice
medical care and necessary social which has grown over time (Organization
services…. for Economic Cooperation and
Development, 1988). In addition, in the
Later efforts, however, to translate the 1960s and 1970s, most high-income
nonbinding 1948 Declaration into binding countries also formed bilateral
international covenants, led to further governmental development organizations.
elaboration of the imperative for states to As a results, by the early 1990s, there were
provide for individual development, and of about 250 multilateral, 40 bilateral, and
the wealthier states to provide assistance to 5,000 international non-governmental
poorer states to help them fulfill this development organizations (Chabbott,
responsibility. 1996). Over time, as their density
increased, these organizations became
Article 11, Para 1. The States Parties increasingly bureaucratized and
to the present Covenant recognize professionalized. Although initially focused
the right of everyone to an adequate on sectors immediately associated with
economic production (such as agriculture or indispensable key to, though not a
infrastructure), international development sufficient condition for, personal
organizations eventually broadened into all and social improvement…
social and economic sectors, including Note that this passage sets out both
education. normative (education as a right) and
In addition, both the documents instrumental (education as an essential
excerpted above emphasize that the target input to development) arguments to
of development is not the national promote education. For most of the post-
economy-the traditional "wealth of nations" war period, instrumental arguments, often
but "everyone." Individual development drawing on human capital constructs
became the means to national development (Schultz, 1963), dominated liberal
and individual development was equated organizations (i.e., the World Bank,
with individual education in many UN USAID). In contrast, normative arguments
documents. The best known of these tended to prevail among more progressive
include Article 26 of the Universal funders (i.e., the UN agencies, the Nordic
Declaration of Human Rights (United bilateral organizations) (Buchert, 1994).
Nations, 1948), which defines education as Finally, the universalistic focus in the
a human right, and Articles 13 and 14 of the development discourse, i.e., "everyone"
International Covenant on Economic, increased emphasis within international
Social, and Cultural Rights (United development agencies on individual
Nations, 1966), which expands on this welfare and on broad participation in the
theme. In 1990 more than 150 nations development process. By the late 1980s,
accepted by acclamation the Declaration of this translated into an increasing focus on
Education for All, reiterating these rights previously marginalized groups, such as
and consequences and reaffirming their ethnic minorities and women. Education
belief in the relationship between became a central theme in efforts to raise
development and education, at the global, these groups to a higher status.
national and individual levels: In summary, we have described the
1. Recalling that education is a mechanism by which discourse at the
fundamental right…..; global level about the nature of
2. Understanding that education can development simultaneously prompted 1)
help ensure a safer, healthier, more the expansion of discourse about education
prosperous and environmentally and development, 2) the formation of
sound world, while simultaneously international development organizations,
contributing to social, economic, and 3) the proliferation of activities to
and cultural progress, tolerance, and promote it, such as international
international cooperation; conferences. The next section examines the
3. Knowing that education is an evolution of the content of discourse about
education in the context of shifting (Jones, 1990). In addition, UNESCO's early
discourse about development. Whereas in education approaches, such as
this section, development discourse "fundamental education," assumed a causal
facilitated the creation of a field of link between education and development.
international development organizations, in Margaret Mead, one of a series of social
the next we show how, once created, these scientists and humanitarians called upon to
organizations generate secondary discourse help UNESCO define its mission declared:
that results in an emphasis on different
levels and types of education in different The task of Fundamental Education is
decades. to cover the whole of living. In
addition, it is to teach, not only new
Translating International Development ways, but the need and the incentive,
Discourse into Educational Development for new ways… if the new education is
Discourse to fill the place of the old, it has to
Since the end of World War II, cover all areas of living… In many
institutionalized discourse on development countries new fundamental education is
within the UN justified the formation of carried on by teams including social
dozens of formal UN-affil-iated workers, graduate nurses, agricultural
organizations with the express purpose of assistants, home economists, hygiene
operationalizing the UN's Charter, experts (Quoted in Jones1990).
Declaration, and Covenants. The UN's
commitment to promoting education as a UNESCO's mandate envisions the
human right was manifest in the relatively organization as the main conduit for much
early creation of the United Nations development assistance. Like other UN
Educational, Scientific, And Cultural organizations, UNESCO suffered a major
Organization (UNESCO, f. 1946). Jones setback with the advent of the Cold War.
(1990) emphasizes the importance of the Since then, many bilateral organizations,
objective, material needs of the Allies to and even some other UN organizations
rebuild education systems shattered by created education sections. In addition,
World War II in establishing UNESCO as several other intergovernmental
an action-oriented organization. An organizations specializing in educational
emphasis on psychology and international development emerged, such as the
peace was deeply embedded in UNESCO, International Institute for Educational
which popularized Clement Atlee's notion Planning (IIEP. f .1963) (see King, 1991 for
that "wars begin in the minds of men." a more complete catalog of international
Illiteracy-or the lack of exposure to the educational development organizations).
socializing influence of schooling was While UNESCO tried from time to time to
therefore constructed as a threat to peace mount ambitious global level programs,
such as the World Literacy Program, its corresponding discourse about educational
main contribution to educational development and the educational priorities
development became reports, pilot projects, associated with this discourse (Jones, 1997;
and conferences (Jones, 1990). Jones, 1990; Jones, 1992)…
Many factors contributed to the rise of Although there is much overlap in these
what Cox (1968) calls the ideology of decades, trends are evident. First, the
educational development. UNESCO's concept of development shifts from
regional conferences helped to create national control and orientation to
common vocabulary and goals. A group of international funding and global
American economists (Becker, 1964; orientation. Second, we see increasing
Schultz, 1963) provided the rational link complexity in the way the process of
between education and development in the development is imagined, with newer
form of human capital theory. US approaches subordinating but not entirely
foundations supported both economic replacing older ones. But, most importantly,
research and expanded support for the we see national development increasingly
study of education and development in defined in terms of individual welfare,
other countries (Berman, 1992). Finally, rather than simply in terms of national
international development organizations economic growth and, concurrently, a push
expanded their education departments, to use universal access to primary
promoted specific education policies and education as a key measure of both
projects, and funded new educational and individual welfare and national
research networks in developing countries development. This rationalization -that
(McGinn, 1996). individual- welfare, particularly individual
The education policies [that were] access to quality education is at the very
promoted by the international development center of development creates the
organizations, however, do not necessarily foundation on which to build broader,
derive from the educational research normative arguments for education and
described in Sections 2 and 3, above: rather development.
they tend to the shifting ideas about Beginning in the second row of Table 1,
development (Berman, 1997; Coombs, the "comprehensive economic development
1985; Watson, 1988). Table 1 is a planning" approach promoted in the 1950s
simplified mapping of the major by a variety of governments and
approaches to national development in the international donor organizations assumed
decades since World War II, as articulated that each nation-state was a relatively
in the mainstream practitioner literature autonomous, self-contained unit. Prudent
(Arndt, 1987; Lewis & Kallab, 1986;. management of domestic resources was the
Lewis, 1988; Meier, 1995). Alongside these supposed determinant of national
development approaches, we show the development, and might be achieved with
little help from the outside world. During be necessary to address chronic social and
this decade, UNESCO implemented economic imbalances at the world level that
"fundamental" and later "functional" favored the rich countries and maintained
education programs, introducing literacy as the economic disadvantages of the poorer
a part of a broad approach to community ones.
development. Universal primary education In this context, a "basic education"
was assumed to be a low cost activity that capable of equipping both adults and
required locally trained teachers and no children to participate more fully in their
scarce foreign exchange. societies, became the focus of development
In the 1960s, rapid economic growth agency attention. Education was the way to
became prerequisite to development, still equalize economic opportunity and
promoted by central planning. Educational incorporate previously neglected groups.
planners urged developing countries to Along with formal primary schools,
focus their limited budgets on formal UNESCO in the 1970s emphasized adult
secondary and higher schooling in subjects literacy and life-long education, and
related to industrialization. Technical and various international development
vocational training also received support, as organizations explored the potential of non-
well as vocationally-oriented literacy. formal, i e., out of school education.
Education was rarely mentioned as a right, In the 1980s, structural adjustment
but rather as instrumental to industrial brought home the message that no nation is
development. an island, all are part of the world financial
In the 1970s, as some speculated that system. This implied that nation-states-both
economic growth was increasing, rather developed and developing should adjust
than decreasing the ranks of the their domestic economic policies and
impoverished in many countries, the structures to conform to the international
concept of development was expanded to system, not vice versa; that those nation-
include "social" as well as "economic" states which do not keep their financial
aspects. During this decade, "basic human house in order will forfeit some degree of
needs" emerged, along with the idea that their financial sovereignty.
the international community had a Although manpower planning of the
responsibility to meet these needs in nation- 1950s failed to prepare most countries to
states where weak economies and handle the educational crises in the 1960s
administrative infrastructure rendered it and 1970s, a variation on it human
impossible for national governments to do resources development became very
so. Some more radical analyses extended popular in the 1980s. With education
the responsibilities of the international defined as a "basic human need," "human
community even further, suggesting that a resources development" became a
New International Economic Order might prerequisite to "social" or "human"
development and momentum built toward normative arguments showed up in the
establishing minimum standards of basic claim of universality in the title of the
education for all individuals, particularly conference, of human beings having
previously disadvantaged groups (Allen & inalienable "learning needs," (Inter-Agency
Anzalone, 1981). More emphasis was Commission. World Conference on
placed on formal primary and secondary Education for All, 1990) and of underlying
schools, particularly on improving equity concerns embedded in calls for
efficiency and their ability to serve all "quality education for all" (King & Singh,
citizens. 1991).
Western nation-states reacted to global The World Bank, convinced that the
recession in the early 1990s with cutbacks social returns to primary schooling were
in development assistance to both multi- higher than for any other type of schooling,
and bilateral organizations. This reinforced promoted formal primary and secondary
the influence of the World Bank in schools. In the interest of equity, both the
education in developing countries. The Bank and other international development
Bank maintained its structural adjustment organizations devoted more attention in the
loans and continued to employ more social 1990s to school quality, both in terms of
science researchers than any other classroom teaching and curriculum. Most
international development organization countries now have a national policy
(Jones, 1997). By the early 1990s, however, mandating universal primary education and
the World Bank was coupling its structural the decade has been marked by interest in
adjustment loans with social dimensions of alternative ways to get children,
adjustment packages. In general, these particularly girls, in remote and/or
packages were designed to strengthen the conservative areas into modern schools
borrower country's capacity to monitor the (Ahmed, Chabbott, Joshi, & Pande, 1993).
effects of structural adjustment on the poor In summary, the measures of
and to channel compensatory program development as an international and
funds through grassroots NGOs. By the national concern have changed over the last
mid-1990s, World Bank literature speaks of five decades from a narrow focus on
"development with a human face" and national economic growth to incorporate
about "sustainable human development" measures of individual welfare and human
rather than aggregate economic growth. rights. At the same time, the locus of
The World Bank joined with UNESCO, responsibility for the development
Unicef, and UNDP to sponsor the World imperative has shifted from the national to
Conference on Education for All (1990, the global level. Finally, education became
Jomtien, Thailand). While instrumental inextricably linked with notions of
arguments lingered just below the surface development, and the levels and types of
in much of the focus on girls' education, education emphasized in different decades
mirrors trends in broader development upheaval or in search of a larger
discourse, not necessarily empirical professional milieu (Chabbott, 1996).
research on education and development. The work of the staff in governmental
None of the education approaches and non-governmental development
described above (fundamental education, organizations has grown more bureaucratic
functional education, quality learning for and professionalized over time.
all, etc.) was fully implemented and Development professionals have created
therefore the postulated contribution of and are now sustained by a network of
education to development that each claimed support organizations and publications. For
has never been empirically established. example, membership in the Society for
However, these theories about the International Development (f. 1957) now
relationship between education and includes close to 10,000 individuals and
development were asserted and reiterated at over 120 organizations or agencies in 60
hundreds of international conferences in the countries. The bi-monthly International
post-war period, many of them aimed Development Abstracts (f 1982) covers
particularly at officials in low-income more than 500 journals and other serial
countries and in international development publications and the Development
agencies. The role of professionals in Periodicals Index (f 1991) lists about 600.
promoting these conference that, in turn, With respect to the education sector, the
promoted different levels and types of study of developing countries has occupied
education because of their putative links to considerable space in major comparative
development, is the subject of the next and international educational journals and
section. conferences since the 1950s. By the late
1970s, specialization in educational
Professionalizing Educational development led to the establishment of at
Development least one journal (the International Journal
Between the end of World War II and of Educational Development, f. 1981); a
the beginning of the 1980s, the background dozen post-baccalaureate degree programs,
and composition of the staff of international such as Stanford International Development
development organizations changed Education Committee (f.1965); and
significantly. Originally recruited from associations, such as the Nordic
former colonial officers, children of Association for the Study of Education in
missionaries, and war relief workers, newer Developing Countries (f 1981).
staff includes former volunteers with In spite of their efforts to
organizations like the Peace Corps and professionalize, the routine barriers created
International Voluntary Service, and highly by lengthy tours overseas and
educated, expatriate officials from preoccupation with the politics of securing
developing countries, fleeing political government funding tend to isolate them
from the Western academic community. professional educational development
Like professionals in all fields, many intend circles. Instead, professional debates have
but few are able to remain up to date with focused more on the relative strength of
new developments in their fields, such as instrumental (education as an input to
debates in recent decades about the gray of economic growth) versus human rights
the relationship between education and justifications for education and the value of
development. different levels of education in different
Nonetheless, these professionals play a contexts. Faith in the power of education to
role in the rise in interest in education and address core development concerns has
development in Western schools of grown over time, as described in the
education. For example, volunteer teachers preceding section. This faith culminated in
returning from service with relief and later the 1990 World Conference on Education
development agencies (i.e., pre- for All (EFA).
professionals in our terms), such as the As noted above, since the late 1950s,
American Friends Service Committee and international development conferences have
the Peace Corps, brought new interest in proved a popular way for chronically
developing countries to international under-funded international development
education departments in graduate schools professionals to move the development
of education. In addition, development agenda forward, to raise global awareness
agencies funded short- and long- term about a particular problem and to call upon
training for officials and academics from nation-states to bring resources to bear
developing countries, creating an important upon that problem. By 1990, various UN
source of revenue for some schools of and other donor organizations had
education. The Ford Foundation funded the sponsored hundreds of world and regional
creation or expansion of development educational conferences and had produced
departments in many schools of education more than 77 recommendations to
in the US. Most directly, development education ministers and about a dozen
agencies generated a demand for "experts" general declarations on the subject of
in education, who could provide advice to education.
ministries of education in developing By 1990 all the of the blue-print
countries. Within academia, the study of described earlier in Figure 1, which allowed
education in developing countries usually international development professional to
resided in a broader department of legitimately initiate, sponsor, and follow up
comparative and/or international education world development conferences, were in
in a school of education. place. The blueprint includes: creating a
Despite their symbiosis, the challenge sense of crisis about some sector at the
to human capital theory mounted in global level (Coombs, 1968; Coombs,
academic circles rarely surfaced in 1985); mobilizing governmental consensus
around a non-binding declaration and a
framework for action; generating national SUMMARY
plans action; generating additional national International development
and international funding for those plans; professionals have invoked taken-for-
establishing international means to monitor granted ideals to mobilize both nation-
compliance with national plans; and, states and NGos around a menu of
wherever possible, translating the subject of technical-functional education "needs."
the conference into a binding international These ideals, the professionals' claims of
covenant or defining it more forcefully as a technical-functional expertise, and the
human right (UNESCO, Education for All degree to which the professionals have
Forum Secretariat, 1993). gained global acceptance of certain
In addition, the Education for All activities, such as international conferences,
conference was one of the first conferences increase the influence of these professionals
to invite development NGOs, both beyond their individual or collective social,
international ones and those formed in economic, or political status.
developing countries, as full participants. In this sense development professionals
These NGOs later helped to monitor should not be mainly construed as powerful
national governments' compliance with agents pursuing their own interests or those
agreements made at the conference. of their nation-states of origin. These
Equipped with inexpensive facsimile professionals have, along with other
machines and electronic mail connections mechanisms, played an important role in
to other groups and organizations around recent decades in diffusing blueprints of
the world, local NGOs are able to report education and development and the
lags in government efforts to turn expansion of different levels and types of
international commitments into action education in different decades. They have
(Social Watch, 1996). mainly accomplished this by enacting the
The impact of Education for All on role of objective experts and rational
literacy and primary school enrollments, or managers, engaged in highly legitimate
even international development assistance activities, associated with some of the most
levels' to education, has yet to be assessed taken-for-granted notions of progress and
(Bennell & Furlong, 1998; Hallak, 1991). justice at the global level.
Meanwhile, the effects of the EFA
Conference and other international @Penghuni karangbolong
development projects upon the way Note that this passage sets out
education is defined, organized, and both normative (education as a
appears at the global, national, and right) and instrumental
classroom levels, particularly in low (education as an essential input
income countries, remains to be explored. to development) arguments to
promote education. For most of
the post-war period,
instrumental arguments, often
drawing on human capital
constructs (Schultz, 1963),
dominated liberal organizations
(i.e., the World Bank, USAID).
In contrast, normative arguments
tended to prevail among more
progressive funders (i.e., the UN
agencies, the Nordic bilateral
organizations) (Buchert, 1994).