Redefining Education in Developing World: An Organic Way of Teaching (Part 2)

**Note: This is a continuation from the previous article. However, rather than relying on economics, I think for such an article, it is far better to incorporate personal observation and philosophy into it to make it feel a bit more alive, but at the same time, a bit unpragmatic here and there (if you think of it based on how developing countries function as of present days).

II. The Challenges

Since the developing world lacks in so many aspects, the adoption of western-style education without adapting it to the social, cultural and economic contexts of the local can lead to a major problem, the mismatch between reality surrounding the recipients of education and the theories or the information taught. In each developing country, how big the gap is can be determined by looking into the richness of knowledge provided in comparison to the lacking or the availability of tools or materials to demonstrate and solidify the knowledge or theories taught to students. 

This recurring trend is a motivation killer. I, myself, have experienced it. This is worsened by the fact that most educators are not able to explain and demonstrate the practicality, the purpose of the subjects being taught. There is little or no activity to increase students' understanding of particular scientific theories, and thus, they are not able to conceptualize the ideas being conveyed to them. Learning then becomes a chore as students see no purposes of learning beyond certain levels. Students are unable to perceive the milestones that they can reach each time a certain level of education is achieved. The academic world then becomes boring. Many students have become no better than parrots who only memorize the subjects being taught in short-term, to only fight to survive the exams, but cannot figure out the underlying concept, the intuitions, the rationale of what they have been studying on and on for so many years. Tedious and lack of appeal, the conventional and outdated western-style education has transformed students to be just like sailors who can't navigate their way through the ocean.

If possible, I would like us all to travel back in time and ask the high-school version of ourselves (Heck, even our current selves) what they think about, say, calculus and its practical purpose? Why study physics if you only want to be a car salesman? We need to answer these sorts of questions to fully feel the motivation and see the incentive in further pursuit of such fields of study, which, without doubt, are critical in building a capable workforce that is able to assist the industrialization process of a country.

It seems a structural reform is needed, but this would require a tremendous amount of resources. Furthermore, developing countries are already facing many challenges, all at the same time: income, health, security, natural disaster, political instability - just to name a few. Resource constraint has then become a big hurdle as countries possess very limited resources even with external aids. This means that allocating too much resource into one sector, like education, will suck away resources from the others, and most of the time, many sectors equally demand strong attentions and actions. Setting priority is, thus, a very challenging task for a small group of high-ranking people at the decision-making level. For instance, putting too much resource into the education sector might retard the growth of health and agricultural sector on which most developing nations are highly dependent. Of course, education sector might complement health sector, but that really depends on the ability of the government to effectively allocate resource into the right place and at the right time, to where it is most needed so we can avoid unnecessary waste of valuable inputs. Since that is the case most of the time, one simple question pops up when making decision regarding relocating resources towards education: "Is it worth the money and effort?"


III. Recommendations

Re-think Education
Image source: http://www.thesamhitaacademy.com/activities.html

The road to education is to invest in it and expect a change, a high return and a sustainable one. A great investment if you ask me. While resource constraint remains, developing nations need to set a clear budget plan for education and further mobilize funds from various international communities and organizations to meet the goal. Private and public sectors partnership also plays a significant role in allowing for quality and affordable education. For instance, banks can offer schools in its vicinity some sorts of educational services like allowing students to visit and learn about its operation or sending its staff to teach students, even a little bit, about banking, how it works and how it benefits students and their society. Government can, for example, provide free public transportation to students. If scholarship is too much of a burden on their pockets, the government can provide long-term-low-interest loan to aid students financially until they are able to join the workforce and earn to repay their debts. This is, in a sense, an investment that will also yield financial return on top of more capable citizens.

And how can we reshape education? 

Effective, impactful, and sustainable ways of educating people is through positive reinforcement, motivation and encouragement. In a nutshell, that means acknowledging and treating students as human, and not machine. Educational structure will need to be reformed slightly or drastically depending on the re-assessment of the current practice and re-adjust it accordingly to be aligned with the strengths and weaknesses of each country.

What does that mean? It means that a country, like Burma, will have to evaluate the current understanding of an average person in its country, see if they are strong in business sense and weak in judgmental capacity, or if they are strong in technological know-how but weak in punctuality and work ethics. Of course, each individual is unique, but it is not wrong to generalize if we do a rigorous study on one particular society because a group of people tend to have certain traits peculiar to them, which normally emerges due to the natural surrounding environment. 

The government should also look more into the current and projected demands of skills in the current and future market. Knowledge gained from such observation can be used to reshape the educational curriculum of that particular country to first include subjects teaching skills that are most needed (practical) in everyday life; second, include subjects that build a strong foundation of cognitive thinking and spiritual understanding which are both indispensable in promoting quality individual and social life and society; and third, advanced knowledge that fosters cutting edge development and innovation to further promote not just technological, economic and social improvements, but development in general.

Moreover, the world of education should take a simple economic concept into account, which is incentive. Incentive will bring motivation and purpose. For instance, incentive to be educators. Countries should be more willing to run on deficit and re-allocate more resources to education sector, to provide enough incentive and prestige for higher quality educators, not the smartest one in what they are doing, but the smartest one in explaining what they are doing and why they are so enthusiastic about it. These sorts of people are crucial in development, in ensuring a promising future, because a country's workforce is its people, and well-educated people will not just push return per unit of investment even higher, but also contribute to a strong foundation of social stability, order and peace, and last but not least, morality. Note that, this will be much more likely to come true with strong educators, visionaries that are bold enough, reckless enough, to defy the conventional viewpoints for the greater good of the whole society.

But formal education is not the only route, I dare say. Why? Because not everyone is good at studying in a classroom setting. There are people who can learn better and quicker in actual practice; there are people who are better at doing than thinking, and vice versa. Everyone is good at something, something that can help them sustain their own lives and ensure long-term satisfaction. Forcing them to study (by overvaluing formal education) is no different from forcing them towards one direction, stripping away their personal goal and value. They should study because they think it helps them achieving a better life for themselves and those around them. They should be explained about the true nature of education, that it is not a chore, but something they should enjoy to their fullest. 

Another reason why I strongly encourage countries to spend more and even borrow to spend on education is because spending and borrowing will only erode in value if they are used on something that yields no or low return. Since education will create a strong workforce in the long run, I believe that there will be strong and positive explicit and implicit returns, and the momentum will keep going when such a workforce has been created. Why? Because the next generation of those well-educated people will mostly be shaped in the same way by their predecessors. For this simple reason, developing nations should earmark their expenses for things revolving around education such as schools, training center for teachers, higher salary for teachers, better physical and soft infrastructure to shorten the distance between students and educators, and so forth. This sounds like too much spending all over again, but let me repeat: it is not the same. The purpose of spending, even though we are spending on the exact same thing, can make a huge difference in terms of outcomes, and I think I have talked about this enough from my previous articles and this article that there is no longer the need to reiterate.

I envision a course begins with an introduction to the practicality and purposes of it, as opposed to the rudiments of that particular subject. Students should be allowed the freedom to explore, to learn from practical points of view first before getting into the harder theoretical or abstract forms of ideas. How can we make this happen?
Non-formal education is the answer. It should be factored in and aligned with formal education. I would like to one day see a school where non-formal education is embraced. Students can have a full day during their normal weekdays to explore their interests. Work on a business idea, create amazing piece of artwork, compose beautiful music, listen to interesting history of the world of their choices, explore space in awe, read for pleasure, learn how to repair their own bikes, learn how to sew, learn how to saw, learn how to see the world the ways they want to the world to see them, learn about self-regulation, learn how to build strong sense of moral value, and my goodness, there are a lot more. This will only happen if we all are in consensus to forget just for even a day what we used to think, what we used to do, and re-think a better way to learn, to work and to live.

Creating such incentive and close the gap, non-formal (let's say "extra") education for students is of vital importance. Inclusive and organic approaches should be taken to actualize this form of education.

Of course, that does not mean that compulsory education is no longer needed, BUT it should be practiced in conjunction with various other forms of education such as cooking, music, computer, physical education, and many others. In other words, students should not only be tested on their ability to solve problems on paper, but also their ability to apply what they have learnt in the real world practice, to survive and be self-reliant, to be fit, to play healthy (music and sports, and heck, even moderate gaming), etc. 

This is not to say that quantity should be preferred over quality, but smart students should NOT just be book smart. A book is a compilation of one or a group of human thinkers, a record of some historical events, and by assuming we are all different and none of living and non-living beings, events, philosophy can be without flaw, being book smart is never enough, and I guess everyone can see that from their own experience.  

I want to see a world where everyone is able to, rather than memorize philosophy and events, analyse, select, adapt and synthesize the various elements of life they learn to suit their own taste and personal value, while at the same time, keeping in mind that a line should be draw, a boundary should be set to respect the values other people hold. This is to say play your game but don't ruin the others'. I want to see a world where people are able to contribute not just in terms of raw labour and brain power, but also qualities as human beings.

The sad truth is that this is a utopia that is probably not ever going to exist, but let's go as close to it as we can. 

Re-think education. Re-imagine the world. 

Redefining Education in Developing World: An Organic Way of Teaching (Part 1)

1. Introduction to Education and Economics
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Image source: http://www.myeducationadvices.com/

1.1. Why education to begin with?

An economy is made of people. People created all the necessities for the economy to function properly. You may think "Wait a minute, what about endowments from our mother earth such as water, fertile soil, trees, etc?" Shouldn't those be considered non-human factors of production? Certainly yes. Nonetheless, no matter how you look at it, we are the ones to make the ultimate decisions about how those resources should be utilized. Thus, I have come to a conclusion that developing an economy, developing a country, in essence, begins with education or re-education of its people.

Why education? People approach this question differently, but there is a simple economic way of answering such question. You see, an economy is people in disguise. The economy, just like a car, is not going to steer itself, we are the ones to do it. You might think that market economy is all about the invisible hand playing with the uncontrollable force of demand and supply, but that is simply untrue. What is invisible hand? What is the market force? Aren't they all made up of millions of human interactions? of millions of transactions?

"The invisible hand doing its job"
Image source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulyVXa-u4wE

To me, the only difference between central planning and free market economy is none other than the source of control. In central planning economy, the top few or the government is the king who exercises top-down approach to make decisions from above in order to direct economic activities at the front line. Free market is just doing the opposite by concentrating economic power in the hands of the majority, of the people at the front line, to let them (the ones with expertise in their respective fields) decide what best for them and where resources should be allocated to achieve the optimal outcomes. This or that, the bottom line is the whole economy, the whole nation is strongly connected to its people. The people are the ones who drive the economy forward, not some invisible spooky hand.

This is much related to the last few paragraphs of our previous article as we discussed about education as a primary means among several others to be employed to achieve a sustainable rate of increasing human well-being. I did promise that I will elaborate the point I made to show you what my ideal academic world really is as I went as far as to recommend deficit spending (spending>income ==> spend borrowed money). I am doing just that right now.

However, before getting to that point, we have to ask ourselves this question: why should we go through all the troubles, even as to suggest running a deficit to ensure effective education?

Because education is strongly tied to the effectiveness of labour. In economics, at its very core, there is something called "production function". Production function simply tells you how much an economy can product given the inputs used. In its most basic form, the production function is:

Y = A*F(K,L)

where Y is the total amount of output produced; A is technology (it is a bit more complicated than that, but for simplicity, let's regard A as technology); K is capital (factories, machinery, equipment, etc); L is labour (anyone old enough to work legally);

The so-called production function at its much less complex form
Image source: thismatter.com

So output is A times the function of K and L. In other words, the amount of goods and services an economy produced depends on how much of labour and capital it uses to produce the output and by how much technology can further improve the productivity of those labour and capital.

There has been a finding which states that the return to the factors of production is alpha=0.25 and beta=0.75 for capital and labour respectively. This means that a unit of labour contributes to 0.75 or 75% of the total output while capital only accounts for 25%.

However, I cannot vouch for this particular finding. Though it is far from perfect, it is what I have learnt, and I think it is good, at least, to know. It pounds in the basic foundation of economics, if nothing much.

Labour is crucial to the growth of developing nations. So, by educating people, we are improving the effectiveness, the quality of labour allowing more production and faster growth, even with the same amount of capital. Plus, note that as a country develops, it also starts to either create or import capital and technology (in case of import, it allows the country to leapfrog in terms of technology), and thus, it is super important to have enough qualified labour that is able to employ the new capital and technology. Since, logically speaking, the additional output produced by an additional unit of labour is supposedly large in the developing nation assuming stable political state and enabling physical and soft infrastructures, labour quality is an essential factor to further push the beneficial effect to its best form. Moreover, since importing also entails cultural, political and philosophical influences, it is a must that the recipients are well-educated enough to analyze, filter negative elements and assimilate positive ones into their own society.

Investing in education is thus indispensable, and it all comes down the questions below.

How can we elevate the effectiveness and impact of education? How can we reshape education to ensure a well-educated population in the direction that can help many of the poor countries' economies to take off?
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1.2. How do the majority define modern education?

And to answer these questions, we have to first define, not education, but our ways of defining education because this is where it matters the most. Why? Because in this world, there are those who define stuff, and those who learn from the definitions readily made for them by the former. Since the latter makes up the majority of the population, the world is thus shaped by the force of the practitioners. Why? Because the pioneers who have molded the way this world operates, the pioneers who who contributed to the foundation of human thinking and those who keep stacking more blocks on the top are only a tiny percentage of the population, and some of those are not even in this world anymore. The ones left in charge are those influenced by either traditional mindsets or contemporary ones which somewhat are also influenced and shaped by the orthodox.

For this reason, since the olden days, education is mostly regarded as what provided by the academic world, which is a world of its own. The batch of knowledge most people refer to is delivered in the form of formal and compulsory education. The academic realm is mostly associated with formal education, whether provided by private or public institutions, charged or free of charge. Note that, I did not only use the word "education" but "formal education". Why is that?

A typical classroom setting found across the globe. I was there, not literally.
Image source: www.fed-soc.org

You see, the reason I used the term "formal education" is because when we talk about education or someone educated, we, most of the time, expect them to see if they are holding their Bachelor's, Master's or doctoral degrees. We tend to think of education as something so linear, something acquired by entering and spending years in school. For young people with little work experience, when they seek jobs, their potential employers will most likely ask them for their level of "formal education" and only then will they seek other qualifying indicators such as volunteering experiences.

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Extra:

Is there an economic explanation to this common and customary practice of ours? It all comes down to cost, either pecuniary or non-pecuniary, or both.

You see, when two parties come together to make a deal, they are looking for something out of one another. The prospective employees look for jobs that pay as much as possible considering the capacity they possess, and their potential employers are looking to select only candidates with the right set of skills they need so their expense on labour to be cost-effective. Each of these two groups are looking to fulfill their own self-interests, but what really slows down the process is the asymmetric information. Firms cannot ascertain the level of skills applicants have with just the applicants babbling about how great they are and how they want to help improve the entire world. Employers need a solid proof of the applicants' capacity, and the only way to do that is through papers stamped, sighed, sealed, and delivered from certified capacity building institutions (i.e. school...). These papers you accumulate after years of cramming for exams and still survive will give your potential employers a much less costly method of screening applicants to see the green light and the red light.

So, for the sake of economic efficiency, whether you like it or not, formal education is a must.
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However, this mindset is also where we need to fix the most.

Formal education is a requisite in building the fundamental knowledge of a wide range of subjects from science to art and anything in-between. The academic realm will demand basic knowledge gained from compulsory formal education before it can allow anyone to pursue higher education. It is only a common sense for both private and public sectors to be actively looking to recruit youthful individuals with high level of formal education into their organizations.

Just giving you a heads up, I am not arguing against formal education. I, to be honest, strongly support it.

However, this is where it all goes a bit off track for the developing world. What we are doing now is adapting ourselves to the formal education system adopted in the global north instead of adapting and adjusting education to fit with the current needs and conditions of ours, of the global south.

The continuation to this article will be written later, hopefully soon. To be continued to "Part 2"!

Thanks for spending time here.