ABSTRACT

Many factors are responsible for sustained rapid economic development. An important one is the presence of a labour force with appropriate skills, discipline and commitment. Education can play an important role in producing such a labour force. A certain level of general knowledge and generic skills is learned in primary and secondary schools. The skills and discipline acquired enable new information to be absorbed faster, unfamiliar inputs and new processes applied more effectively, and many social and institutional barriers to economic growth removed. Labour mobility is also improved, which promotes the division of labour. The standard method of estimating the rate of return to educational investment does not take the quality of education into account. It is concerned only with the quantity of education and measures this by the years or grades of schooling.