NN37, May 2006
Special Theme on Education and Training out of Poverty? A Status Report
WHAT ROLE FOR EDUCATION IN THE CHRONIC POVERTY INITIATIVES?
By Caroline Dyer, Leeds and Pauline Rose, Sussex
Concerned at the very low profile of education in the first Chronic Poverty Report, the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (hosted between Manchester and London) commissioned a background paper on education and chronic poverty to inform the 2006-07 report.The paper establishes that the processes through which education influences poverty are insufficiently understood ? and even less so with respect to intergenerational poverty transmission in particular. It also identifies what almost appear to be two separate discourses, neither of which is engaging with the conceptual advances of the other to the extent necessary if research is to inform poverty-focused policies more effectively and completely.
In the chronic poverty discourse, there have been considerable advances in recent years in the conceptualisation of poverty; and within this, there has been recognition of the importance of education. However, the evidence base for this recognition draws primarily on human capital approaches, which focus on the implications of individual?s skills acquisition for development. ?Education? is used without much attention to the nuance of what this means ? it generally implies schooling, but this is not unpacked to consider how many years, which level, and what quality might make a difference to poverty reduction. The ?black box? of education remains rather firmly shut and isolated from social contexts.
On the other hand, research in the field of education recognises the importance of political, social and economic processes that exclude children from attending school and/or participating and achieving if they do manage to enrol. This literature, however, is somewhat too closely focused on what is in the black box, and has shown less concern with what happens to children beyond schooling. It also shows limited engagement with the developments that have taken place within poverty debates.
These findings are reiterated in education policy approaches internationally, as well as within countries as identified through an in-depth study of education programmes across six countries in South Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty, and chronic poverty in particular, is rarely an explicit focus in educational policy, but rather, one aspect of a range of cross-cutting disadvantages linked with social class / caste, gender, geographical location, and so on. Indeed, there is a question over whether it is useful to use poverty as a particular, isolated category of disadvantage if this risks losing the nuanced understandings of other aspects of disadvantage that are developing through research in education.
It seems common sense to believe that education does impact positively on the interruption of chronic poverty. But when subjected to closer scrutiny, the conventional wisdom on the importance of education in addressing chronic poverty is largely unclear on how, why and what forms of education can achieve the desired outcomes. There is an urgent need for further research focusing clearly on the relationship between the two. This agenda encompasses both the generation of interdisciplinary debate and engagement in the advances in one another?s thinking; and also a joint focus on developing the methodological innovations that are needed to deliver evidence that is sufficiently fine-grained and longitudinal to guide policy, and positively influence the practices of education and development practitioners working with the chronically poor.
For details on the Chronic Poverty Reports, a copy of the full paper from which this report abstracts, and information about occasional papers and other useful publications, you can visit our website.