Question

What problems arise in attempting to assess the social benefits of increased investment in school education?

Answer 1

Besides the intrinsic value of being educated, education is associated with a wide range of benefits to both individuals and society. Education contributes to greater productivity and economic growth. Moreover, education has spillover effects: human capital is at the heart of innovation, and a more educated workforce fosters innovative ideas leading to more and better jobs.

For the economic benefits from education, data show that at each additional level of educational attainment there are improved labour market outcomes for individuals. People with higher levels of education are more likely to find employment, remain employed, learn new skills on the job, and earn more over their working life relative to those with lower levels of education. Non-formal and informal learning also pay off by reducing the costs and time required to acquire formal education, and vocational programmes yield benefits by helping people learn technical, practical skills that are relevant for the jobs available.

The economic benefits are not limited to individuals. Investing in education gives governments positive public returns at every level of education. Educated citizens earn more, pay higher taxes over a lifetime, and cost less for their governments in terms of social entitlements and welfare. Not only the economic returns are greater at the tertiary level, but growing evidence also points to the importance of high quality early childhood education and care given its long-term social and economic benefits, such as supporting learning in later grades, increasing equity and social mobility, and reducing poverty. Furthermore, what people know is important, but what they do with what they know is also critical in competitive economies: skills acquisition and use are key policy discussions and since evolving economies often require retraining and skills upgrading, more countries are taking a “life cycle” approach to education starting in early childhood and continuing until after formal schooling in the form of lifelong learning. In this context, career guidance has an increasingly important role to play in helping workers and employers find the best match for skills and jobs available.

While social mobility is influenced by a range of factors, such as individuals’ family and social environment, education that provides equal opportunities for all can help individuals move up the social ladder, and thus help to create more equitable societies. Education also translates into greater levels of civic participation such as voting and volunteering, all of which help to build safer neighbourhoods. Health outcomes are better, too, among people with more education: They are likely to live longer and healthier lives.

Academic research suggests that countries with higher per capita income, lower income inequality, and lower fertility rates tend to invest more in children’s education, with public expenditure leading to higher enrollment rates. The logical conclusion is that efforts to promote more inclusive economic growth and improve education systems can raise enrollment among young people in developing countries and reduce disparities between genders and among social groups.

But simply narrowing the gaps in school-enrollment rates and total years of schooling is not enough. Countries must also ensure the quality of their education systems – a key challenge for the coming decades.

As it stands, poor educational outcomes and inefficient education systems are eliciting deep concern worldwide. In many countries, primary schools fail to provide students with appropriate cognitive skills like numeracy, literacy, problem-solving ability and general scientific knowledge.

Furthermore, inadequate education at the secondary and tertiary levels, including technical and vocational education and training, is leaving students unequipped to meet the job market’s changing demands. As a result, many countries are struggling with a mismatch between the skills that employers seek and those that workers have.

Wide disparities in educational quality, often measured by student achievement on international examinations, are evident within and across countries. The results of most internationally comparable mathematics, reading and science exams for primary and secondary students reveal a considerable gap not only between advanced and developing countries, but also across the developing world. According to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, South Korea had the highest average score (590) in 2011 on the science test for secondary students, while Ghana scored the lowest (306).

Though academic performance is determined largely by family inputs and students’ individual talents, other factors, such as the amount of school resources available to students, also play an important role, as do various other school inputs, such as teacher quality, class size, expenditure per pupil and instruction time.

The institutional features of education systems are another important determinant of student achievement. Private financing and provision, school autonomy and external monitoring and assessment mechanisms tend to influence the quality of education by changing the incentives for students and teachers.

In the future, new information and communication technologies are expected to stimulate the expansion of educational opportunities and to improve educational quality at the national and global level, by offering a variety of innovative learning channels. For example, the ability to use new technologies to build borderless networks among schools can offer opportunities for students in low-income countries to learn from teachers in advanced countries – and vice versa.

Education is highly predictive of future life chances in the Irish context.Those who leave school before the Leaving Certificate are more likely to be unemployed or lone parents, earn less if they have a job, and have poorer health and higher crime levels. One in six young Irish people still leave school without reaching Leaving Certificate level and their likelihood of doing so is strongly influenced by their social background. This has substantial costs for the young people themselves and for society as a whole. Higher rates of early school leaving mean higher future expenditure on welfare, health and prisons and lower tax revenue. International research has indicated that early childhood education and measures to boost academic achievement are key factors in retaining young people within full-time education. A number of countries have also adopted compensatory approaches targeting funding on disadvantaged areas and/or schools. This targeted approach has formed the core of Irish policy addressing educational disadvantage. Survey research indicates that DEIS school principals report significantly higher levels of literacy, numeracy, attendance and behavioural difficulties than their non-DEIS counterparts. As well as catering for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, DEIS schools have disproportionate numbers of groups of students requiring extra support, including newcomers, Travellers and children with learning disabilities. School principals are generally positive about the focus on literacy and numeracy along with funding for educational resources within the DEIS programme. However, both principals and stakeholders raised issues regarding the assessment criteria used for access, the gap on school entry between disadvantaged children and their better-off peers, and more broadly, the capacity of the school to ‘close the gap’ between their children and their counterparts in non-DEIS schools. A further issue relates to the adequacy of targeting funding on particular schools as the sole mechanism for addressing educational disadvantage. There is indeed a ‘multiplier effect’ whereby those in schools with a high concentration of disadvantaged students experience poorer outcomes in relation to attendance, achievement and early school leaving. However, survey evidence indicates that, at least in the second-level sector, over half of disadvantaged young people are attending non-DEIS schools. The study points to three sets of issues for future policy development.

Firstly, preschool education is crucial in enhancing the later educational and social outcomes of disadvantaged children. The new Early Childhood Care and Education Scheme has significant potential to counter educational disadvantage. However, the scheme should be subject to careful evaluation regarding the extent to which children from disadvantaged backgrounds take part, and on whether all children have access to high quality learning opportunities.

Second, policy regarding educational disadvantage in the Irish context has principally focused on targeting resources on schools serving disadvantaged populations. While there are strong arguments in favour of such an approach, it should be noted that a considerable proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds attend non- DEIS schools. School targeting alone cannot, therefore, address the needs of all children and young people in the relevant groups, and a tapered approach to allocating additional resources to schools according to the number of disadvantaged students in their population has some merit.

Finally, schools do not exist in isolation so there is a need for joined-up planning and provision between education, health and welfare services in addressing the holistic development of children. Further, inequality within the educational system will reflect, and reinforce, inequalities within the broader society. The issue of educational disadvantage is even more pertinent in the current climate. The current recession is likely to disproportionately impact on disadvantaged children and their families in terms of unemployment and associated problems, such as drug use and crime. Recent expenditure cuts have attracted criticism in terms of their impact on the educational system as a whole and on disadvantaged groups in particular. While funding for the DEIS programme has been ring-fenced, other measures such as the abolition of the book grant scheme for non-DEIS schools, the reduced capitation grant for Travellers, and the reduced curricular programme grants, are likely to have a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged students, especially those attending non-DEIS schools. In sum, research indicates that investment in education yields very significant economic and social benefits for society at large. In the current difficult climate, it is important that the long-term importance of investment in education is not forgotten:

"Educational equity is a moral imperative for a society in which education is a crucial determinant of life chances."