বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৭ জানুয়ারী, ২০১১

Education degrees and Education loan_05

Despite some claims that returns to primary education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university are invariably high across countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, there is growing skepticism. The work of such authors as Behrman and Birdsall (1985), Hinchliffe (1986), Knight and Sabot (1990), and  Glewwe (1991) suggests that calculations  have  often  incorporated  upward  biases.  This  has  led  Weale (1993) to argue that social returns to education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university will only rarely be in double digits.



This paragraph was used to explain how the relatively low estimates of rates of return in India could be reconciled with the higher figures reported for  other countries. The World Bank publication (1997c, 36-8) presented two tables of rates of return, one from the state of Andhra Pradesh in 1977 and the other from the state of Maharashtra  in 1988.  The former showed  social  rates  of return which, after adjustment for wastage, unemployment, nonparticipation in the labor force, and student ability, were only 7 percent at the primary education level, 6 percent for middle schools and general degrees, and negative for secondary schools. The latter showed rates of return for primary and middle schools that were higher in urban than rural areas, and in most cases higher for females than  males,  but  that  ranged  from  3.5  to  8.3  percent. Nevertheless,  the document pointed out, future rates of return could at least be expected to be positive, and investment in education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university would also bring non-economic benefits.

Challenge  to Psacharopoulos'  work with specific  reference  to Asia  has also been presented by Bennell (1998). Two particular criticisms  have been leveled (p.110). The first is that regional aggregations  presented by Psacharopoulos are problematic because the individual country studies do not all cover every level and type of education like education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university and because they vary widely in the periods of history when they were conducted. The second criticism is that Psacharopoulos relied wherever possible on unadjusted rates of return,  which implied very simplistic relationships between education and incomes and which failed to take sufficient account of the many other factors which influence incomes. Table 8 reproduces figures on the impact of such adjustment, which showed significantly lower estimates.Bennell also highlighted two reporting errors among the 13 Asian countries used in Psacharopoulos' regional aggregate, and noted the existence of other studies that had been excluded from Psacharopoulos'  survey. He concluded (p.118)  that  aggregations "should  be  discarded  altogether  in  any  serious discussion of education investment, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university priorities both for the Asian continent as a whole and individual countries.” He agreed on the value of the concept of rates of return,   but  added  that  the  majority  of  studies  that  have  attempted  to calculate  rates  of  return  for  specific  types  of  education like education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university and  training  are seriously flawed,  mainly  because sufficient data are rarely available.


 Also significant is work by Mingat and Tan (1996), who aimed to estimate the “full” social returns to education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university in economies with different strengths. Such externalities include the fact that a worker's enhanced productivity can have a spillover effect of enhancing coworkers' productivity; and that the general level of education  like education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university in the workforce expands production possibilities by facilitating the discovery, adaptation,  and  use  of  more  economically  rewarding  production processes. Mingat and Tan used this conceptual framework to reappraise the extent to which investments in education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university had contributed to economic growth in a range of countries during the period 1960 to 1985. Their findings call into question the rather generalized recommendations from some previous studies of rates of return.  In particular,  they suggest  that for  low-income  countries primary education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university was the best investment,  but  that  in hindsight for middle- income countries expansion of secondary  education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university would have yielded the highest social  returns,  and that in  high-income  countries  the returns  would have been greatest in tertiary  education.  This last observation  is consistent with the work by Toh and Wong (1999) who indicated that in Singapore rates of return appeared to increase with the level of education like education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university, though in the period 1980-1994 the tertiary

rate of return seemed to decrease over time. Further complexities arise from the fact that former socialist countries have inherited wage structures that may work differently from those in long-standing capitalist  countries.  Newell  and Reilly  (1999)  have  presented  data from 10 former socialist states, of which two Kazakhstan  and Uzbekistan  are in Asia. In these 10 countries, rates of return appeared generally to have risen as the 1990s  progressed;  the  returns  from  tertiary  education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university  appeared  to  be higher than those for technical education and, where data were available, for secondary schooling. Wei et al. (1999) conducted a study in  the PRC,  and found that rates of return varied considerably in different parts of the country. They tended to be higher in more developed regions. These researchers also suggested, contrary to the general view of Psacharopoulos, that rates of return might be higher for secondary than for primary education, education loan consolidation, student loans, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university.

These studies add further weight to the argument that policy recommendations based on data on rates of return should not be oversimplified. The  role  of technical/vocational  education  at the  secondary  level  also remains controversial (Lewin 1993, 222-4; Mingat 1995, 24-5). One view is that academic  studies  do  not  provide  sufficient  ties  to  the  needs  of  the  labor market, especially for students who leave school at the secondary stage, and that technical/vocational training is necessary  both for the direct skills that it provides  and  for  the  attitudes  that  it  inculcates.  During  the  1980s,  this perspective  led  to  substantial  expansion  of  secondary  technical/vocational education in the PRC,  for  example  (Yang  1998).  Between 1989 and 1994, enrollments in PRC secondary vocational schools increased by 45.8 percent, while enrollments in regular senior secondary schools declined by 7.2 percent (Jiang 1996, 40). This change reflected official policy, which encouraged both the opening of new secondary vocational schools, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university and the conversion of regular secondary schools.

Along related lines, a 1994 policy in Taipei,China  has  led to experimentation  with comprehensive high schools which seek to  integrate the goals of general and vocational high schools and "to  increase students' opportunities for exploring their vocational aptitudes" (Rau et al. 1996, 1).

An alternative  view  is that  technical/vocational  schools  are  necessarily more costly than academic ones, and that the outcomes from such forms  of education, education degrees, online degrees, online masters degree, online colleges, online university do not usually justify the investment s (Psacharopoulos  1991).  This view is influenced by Foster's seminal (1966) paper entitled  “The Vocational School Fallacy in Development Planning,” and asserts  that curricula  are by themselves  unable  to  change  students'  attitudes  toward  work  when  labor market signals indicate that academic studies are more likely in reality to bring greater private economic returns.