Question

Discuss the short-run and long-run equity issues related to increasing the quality of education as opposed to the quantity. Students should be able to comment on the short run and long run effects on population growth, employment, growth, and welfare.

Answer 1

The importance of education is higher in both state level as well as national levels. It is very well connected to economic growth. Even though quantity of education is significant, its quality is much more significant. Quality of education can be measured by using the perfomance of students participating in international tests. Lifetime returns for individuals can also be measured with the help of education. The private return rate of investment in schooling in developed countries is comparatively higher than that of underdeveloped countries. This rate of return may change depending upon the education level.

Education is beneficial to the society as a whole and sometimes may benefit privately. Due to such social benefits, government will also fund the basic education. But the primary and secondary education will be funded partly by the government because this will fetch more private benefits.

Resources for education should be utilised in an efficient way. If the link between education and economic growth has been studied, the first thing need to do is differentiating the quantity of education given and quality of provision. This helps to measure the education efficiency because quality measures are basically much more hard to obtain when compared to quantity measures.

Efficiency of education and effectiveness of education are basically different. Doing all the activities in right way is known as efficiency whereas doing the right activities is known as effectiveness. Hence,when higher test results are derived from a very few resources, it measures the efficiency of education. When the results from education benefits the society as a whole in the proper way, it shows the effectiveness of education.

Education is very important in increasing the human capital in the economy. Each level of education will make a specific impact in the short-run growth of economy. But, tertiary level of education will make a long run growth of the economy. New technologies in the field of production as well as services will give more benefits for graduates and results in quality of production.This helps in providing more innovations and to develop the economy. Hence, tertiary level of education is very significant for creating more skilled and talented workers and also to earn huge level of income to the economy.