ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a somewhat different focus by emphasizing that formal education is itself a social product whose form is determined by sequence of social change now occurring in many developing countries. It aims to show that the development of education is a response to the social as well as the economic strategies of people experiencing a certain type of social change and that these strategies are often in direct or indirect conflict with rational economic planning. The correlation between urbanization—the proportion of people living in urban as against rural areas—and education is a high one the world over. The occupational significance of education is not only changing over time, but has a different significance for the different social groups involved in rapid urbanization. With the rapid expansion of an urban population, a prospective employer or client is less likely to know details of an individual’s family background, to know a previous employer, or to know the individual by reputation.
