Educating out of Poverty? A Synthesis Report on Ghana, India ... - DfID

v. Providers and their
approaches to the
provision <strong>of</strong> education
and training
vi. Kinds <strong>of</strong> people
educated
vii. Delivery context
(enabling environment
for educational
processes)
viii. Transformative
context (enabling
environment for
developmental <strong>out</strong>comes,
incl. poverty reduction)
Chapter 2: Linking Education, Skills and Context
• Are the pathways to poverty reduction different depending on whether
education or training are provided in public/private schools or vocational
training institutes/centres or by NGOs, (formal and informal) enterprises, or
through community/peer education?
• Do our claims ab<strong>out</strong> educational pathways to poverty reduction take
adequate account <strong>of</strong> the diverse categories <strong>of</strong> people educated – poor/nonpoor;
young/old; male/female; rural/urban?
• What factors enable or inhibit good educational provision, attendance, and
achievements? (e.g. infrastructure, biophysical environment, teachers/trainers,
culture, family support, finance, immediate opportunity costs)
• What factors enable or inhibit the transformation <strong>of</strong> education and/or
training into good <strong>out</strong>comes? (e.g. opportunities for application <strong>of</strong> knowledge
and skills in jobs, in political participation, and community responsibilities;
social stability, access to services, markets , farm inputs etc.)
ix. Benefit assessment • Are we assessing individual (or ‘private’) benefits to those educated/trained,
or social benefits transferred (through knowledge, income, status) to kin and
community and to society in general (through productivity, social cohesion,
scientific progress, improvement <strong>of</strong> services)?
• Are we looking at intrinsic benefits (direct contributions <strong>of</strong> educational
processes and knowledge to the quality <strong>of</strong> life) or derived benefits
(capabilities to achieve or enjoy other things)?
• Are we concerned with specific technical capabilities or diffuse analytical or
social capabilities that are improved through education?
x. Cost and risk
assessment
xi. Measurement
• Are there some fairly direct ways in which particular educational processes
risk exacerbating poverty – e.g. putting families into unsustainable debt,
training people in unmarketable skills?
• Even if all educated individuals appear to make net gains from education, is
it not possible that the net cost to society <strong>out</strong>weighs the values <strong>of</strong> some
educational investments (e.g. if the main <strong>out</strong>come <strong>of</strong> extra investments is
simply to ratchet up qualification levels with<strong>out</strong> adding useful capabilities)?
•What ab<strong>out</strong> the indirect costs, particularly the opportunity costs to
individuals and the state <strong>of</strong> resources that could have been better deployed in
other ways?
• How will the approach used separate <strong>out</strong> the effects <strong>of</strong> education and
training with other factors? i.e.
i] Where skills training or education are combined with micro-finance or
business development support;
ii] Where education and training pathways include both formal education
and TVET;
iii] Where work experience precedes education or skills training;
iv] Where access to education and training is dependent on a family’s
financial and social capital.
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