Modernization of education sector can boost the economic growth of the nation

The government of Rwanda is fully focused on human resource development through use of the education sector. Many schools, technical institutes and universities have been built to accommodate and educate high numbers of Rwandese people.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

The government of Rwanda is fully focused on human resource development through use of the education sector. Many schools, technical institutes and universities have been built to accommodate and educate high numbers of Rwandese people.

Restructuring of the education system has seen the levels of illiteracy drop from 60 per cent to a smaller per cent and the country target to have at least over 80 percent of its citizens literate. Many teachers, doctors, Engineers, economists, agriculture experts and others to mention but a few has been produced ever since after the 1994.

The government of Rwanda has of recent attracted private investors in the education sector that has seen a number of private modern schools put in place.

Modernization of the education sector usually assumes that school investments will increase the productivity of both the individual and the nation. However, sharp criticism continues to be directed toward the human capital model of national development.

It is important to understand that schools or tertiary institutions can operate primarily at the individual level s that is to say the individual’s rational pursuit of material goals drives demand for schooling and that the school imparts technical skills that increase the individual’s productivity.

It can be noticed that the spread of literacy through schools stems from organization level and ideological processes used by implementers of the education system in the country. Also any economic output of school expansion should be effected and studied at an aggregate level. This is because economic effects may be more related to the changing social rules of trade and work within modernizing economies, which are increasingly oriented around markets and mass production and not village based subsistence.

It can also be observed that aggregate analysis of education avoids the ecological fallacy of estimating nation level productivity growth from individual level correlations between school attainment and wage levels.

In countries where there are no modulators or active implementers of the education system, investments in the education sector have either small or inconsistent economic effects. The potential effect of educational quality that also includes literacy levels from the effect of the quantity of schools available and to disentangle possible effects among different economic sectors.

Educational quality has significant effects on manufacturing output but that school expansion in terms of quantity can have inconsistent impacts. Educational quality can also have a positive impact on the promotion of commercial activities. This is because human capital model may be valid for earlier periods of commercial expansion, but only in countries in which schools have attained a threshold level of quality to yield long term economic impacts.

Education has an immense impact on the human society. One can safely assume that a person is not in the proper sense until he or she attains a certain level of education. Education trains the human mind to think and take the right decision. In other words, man becomes a rational animal when he is educated.

It is through education that knowledge and information is received and spread throughout the world. An uneducated person cannot read and write and hence he is closed to all the knowledge and wisdom he can gain through books and other mediums. In other, words he is also shut off from the outside world and on contrary an educated man lives in a room with all its windows open towards outside world.

The quality of human resource of a nation is easily judged by the number of literate population living in it. This is to say that education is a must if a nation aspires to achieve growth and development and more importantly sustain it. This may well explain the fact that rich and developed nations of the world have very high literacy rate and productive human resource. In fact these nations have started imparting selective training and education programs so as to meet the new technical and business demands of the upcoming century.

or the education development of the country to attain a standard and required level and meet the vision 2020 demands, it is important to cater for the educational needs of the working population, and thus many colleges’ institutions should offer an online education.

The degrees and certificates offered by these online colleges and universities are very convenient for working people as well as students. Working people needs these degrees to update their knowledge and skill level education system which goes hand in hand with the promotion and achieving growth as professionals.

Students can also pursue an online degree and work and earn at the same time. For example certain professionals like doctors and dentists, are obliged to follow mandatory lifelong learning. This is done so that they keep pace with all the research and development done in the medical field. These professionals not only need to update themselves about these developments, but also learn new techniques of practice.

Learning about patient management and the delivery of care is rather a continuing process. Since these professionals, especially doctors have huge moral responsibility towards the patients and society in general; continuing education is a must for them.

It is in such a scenario that distance education comes into the picture. Since professionals do not have the time to attend classroom classes, distance education comes as a convenient alternative. They can learn at a time convenient to them and from the comfort of their homes.

Also modern education aims to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. It also establishes policies regarding federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds. It also continuously strives to focus national attention on key educational issues and providing equal access to education.

The importance of education cannot be neglected by any nation. And in today’s world, the role of education has become even more vital. It is an absolute necessity for economic and social development of any nation.

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