EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT

 

2.0 “Education” and “Development”: The Concepts, their
Inter-relationships and the Conceptual Models (Input-Process –Output Model)

2.1 The Concept of Development

There are three approaches of conceptualizing the term
development which are:

a) Economic Approach

It is the first and earliest approach that was used to define
development. It defines development in terms of income. The scholars who made
some insightful contributions in this approach include:

i. Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)

 He is a first classical economist. 

 He is a Scottish economist and a moral philosopher.

 He is the author of the book ‘An Inquiry into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’ generally shortened as ‘The Wealth of
Nations’.

 He argued that the wealth of nations is affected by three
things: Internal division of labor (specialization in specific circumscribed
tasks and roles within an institution or a society), growth of towns and annual
labor (the fund that a nation supplies to cater for all necessities that its
people consumes annually).

 He argued that the distribution of wealth – which can be
broken down into the basic forms of wages, rent, and profits – is most efficiently
accomplished through free trade without government interference.

 The annual labor should be controlled by the population
between the number of those who are employed in useful labor and that of those
who are not employed.

 According to him, no society can feel happy while the
majority of its population lives in poverty and misery.

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ii. Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834)

 The author of the book ‘ An Essay on the Principles of
Population’.

 He is famous for his theories about population.

 He linked population to the available resources when
discussing the concept of development.

 He argued that population increases overwhelmingly such
that the available resource is not enough to cater for its needs (population
increases to the extent of overstretching the available resources). This
situation leads to social distress.

 Food is necessary for human life and survival.

 The passion between sexes is permanent that is there is a
close relationship between men and women. This relationship leads procreation
which in turn leads to population increase.

 The procreation (reproduction) is higher than the
production of food (men reproduce more offspring than they produce food).

 In order to realize development in a society, we need to
apply some checks and balances of population.

 He proposed two types of checks that hold the population
within the resource limit. Positive checks are kinds of checks which
raises the death rate. They include hunger, diseases and war. The preventive
checks are those kinds of checks which are responsible for lowering the
birth rate. They include abortion, birth control, postponement of marriage, and
celibacy.

 Generally, he argues that population control is a factor
for the development of a society.

iii. David Ricardo (1772 – 1823)

 He is a British political economist and a stock trader.

 He recognized the fact that all the resources we have are
scarce.

 The wealth of the society, nation, or world should be
equally distributed.

 At his time, land was in the hands of the land lords at the
expense of the minority.

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 He argued that land should be
publicly owned through nationalism and socialism or communism.

b) Social Psychological Orientation

According to this approach, the social psychological factors
are very important in defining development. The prominent figures in this
approach include:

i. Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970)

 He is an American psychologist.

 He talked of hierarchy of needs.

 According to him, people get satisfied of the higher needs
because they are satisfied of the lower ones first.

 The hierarchy of needs can be presented as follows:

o Physiological Needs

They are usually biological. They include hunger, thirsty,
breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion, shelter, and air.

o Safety Needs

They include need for the security of body, employment,
resources, morality, health, property, psychological and physical
comfortability.

o Affiliation Needs

All normal people usually want to belong to social units, be
loved, accepted, sexual intimacy, family and friendship.

o Esteem Needs

They are values of being valued. They include the need to be
competent in something, gain approval of others, to be recognized and
appreciated by others, and the need for achievement. 4

o Cognitive Needs

They include the need to know, understand and explore things.

o Aesthetic Needs

They include need for beauty, orderliness, symmetry, general
cleanliness of one’s body and environment.

o Self Actualization Needs

They include needs to realize one’s full potential to things
or to become somebody, usually beyond ordinary circumstance like becoming a
doctor or professor, or a problem solver.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Self Actualization Needs

Aesthetic Needs

Cognitive Needs

Esteem Needs

Affiliation Needs

Safety Needs

Physiological Needs

Source: Omari, I (2006:178)

c) Social Anthropological Approach

It focuses much on quality of life lived by a
community/society living in a certain context as measured by
indices/conditions. The prominent scholars in this approach include:

i. Adam Curle (1916 – 2006)

 He is a British Academician and a peace maker.

 His full name was Charles Thomas William Curle. He was
known as ‘Adam’ after the town where he was born – Llisle Adam – north of
Paris.

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 He suggested 4 conditions for
development: Security, sufficiency, satisfaction and stimulus.

o Security

It refers to a social order that is characterised by a
minimum absence of violence whether physical or administrative in which the
individual is safeguarded by several dimensions like laws and regulations.

o Sufficiency

It refers to availability of necessary minimum conditions or
material provisions characterised by absence of wants (desire for something). A
human being must feel sufficed.

o Satisfaction

It refers to an authentic enjoyment of life that unfolds as
the result of security and sufficiency.

o Stimulus

Any community or individual should feel challenged or
stimulated to do something so that it enhances creativity and innovation and
therefore making contribution to others.

2.2 The Relationship between Education and Development

 Education can be identified with the common indices of
development: Gross national Product (GDP), technological advancement, rate of
industrialization, and improved living standards.

 Education develops a skilled and competent human resource
which is needed in the development of the society.

 The level of education has a causal relationship to
economic development (consider the role of pre primary, primary, secondary,
tertiary and university education to the development of a country).

 Education facilitates the fulfilment of each person’s
material, spiritual and societal needs.

 Education provides knowledge and information which, in
turn, brings about desirable changes in the way people think, feel, and act.

 Education builds a strong sense of self – esteem and self
confidence that contributes to the realization of one’s potential.

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 Education is considered as a social
instrument for developing human resources and for human capital formation.

 People with reasonable literacy and numeracy skills (the
educated ones) tend to produce more, say farm crops, have a limited number of
children, and enjoy a relatively better life than uneducated families.

 Generally, the impact of education on development depends
largely on what we teach, how we teach, and how much learners learn. It is the
educational contents and teaching methods that make the difference in the
society. Thus, education is meaningful only when it brings positive changes in
one’s life and empowers a person to face day – to day challenges.

2.3 Education as an Industry

 Education can be compared to any system which has input,
process and output. In put in the form of resources is entered into the system
and after a conversion processes, an output is achieved. This came to be known
as industry system model or Input – Process – output Model.

 The model was developed to account for the similarities in
the functioning of such diverse phenomena as living organisms, machines,
galaxies and organisations.

 The system may be open or closed. It is closed if it does
not take in or eject matter. It is open if in continuously allows inputs and
output of matter.

 The open system emphasizes on the interdependence between
organization and its environment. The organisation imports various forms of
resources from the environment and transforms such resources into other forms in
the production process.

The Input – Process – Output (IPO) Model

OUTPUT

PROCESS

INPUT

Operators – Input to operate

Operants – Input to be operated 7

 Thus education is an industry which
procures raw materials (Inputs), processes them (Process) and gives product
(Output) of the raw materials acquired.

INPUT	PROCESS	OUTPUT
 Human resource like teachers, administrators, catering workers, gardeners, bus drivers etc.  Material resources like buildings, desks, books, equipment, etc  Financial resources like money.  Constraints like requirements of law and policy.  Expectations of parents, values and goals.  Existing knowledge in the society.  Philosophy.  Theory.  School mission,	 The teaching and learning process.  Internal efficient factors.  Language like the medium of instruction.  Teacher student ratio and relationship.  Quality assurance mechanism.  Pedagogy.  Accreditation.  Curriculum development  Institutional governance.  School inspection.  School activities and programs like meetings.	 Learning outcomes (cognitive, affective and psychomotor)  Examination performances.  School leavers (graduates).  Internal efficiency factors  National/community literacy.