BYLINE: By Amartya
Sen; Amartya Sen, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, is honorary
president of Oxfam. He received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1998.
DATELINE: CAMBRIDGE, England
BODY: Isaiah Berlin has argued: "Men do not live
only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals." The advice was not aimed
at the leaders of the war on terror: Berlin was speaking more than 40 years ago.
But his idea is worth the attention of current world leaders. And one of the
most important positive goals has already been identified by the United Nations:
universal primary education by 2015.
I am aware that
when I argue that basic education for all can transform the
miserable world in which we live, I sound a little like a Victorian gentlewoman
delivering her favorite recipe for progress. As it happens, however, extensive
empirical studies have demonstrated the critical role of basic
education in economic and social development in Europe and North America as
well as in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
When Japan
set out in the 19th century to catch up with the Western nations, its
Fundamental Code of Education, issued in 1872, expressed the public commitment
to make sure that there must be "no community with an illiterate family, nor a
family with an illiterate person." Kido Takayoshi, one of the leaders of
Japanese reform, explained the basic idea: "Our people are no different from the
Americans or Europeans of today; it is all a matter of education or lack of
education." By 1910 Japan was almost fully literate, at least for the young, and
by 1913, though still very much poorer than Britain or America, Japan was
publishing more books than Britain and more than twice as many as the United
States. The concentration on education was responsible, to a large extent, for
the nature and speed of Japan's economic and social progress.
Later on, China, Taiwan, South Korea and other economies in East Asia
followed similar routes. Explanations of their rapid economic progress often
cite their willingness to make good use of the global market economy, and
rightly so. But that process was greatly helped by the emphasis all of these
countries placed on basic education. Widespread participation
in a global economy would have been hard to accomplish if people could not read
or write -- or produce according to specifications or instructions.
The contribution of basic education to
development is not, however, confined to economic progress. Education has
intrinsic importance; the capability to read and write can deeply influence
one's quality of life. Also, an educated population can make better use of
democratic opportunities than an illiterate one. Further, an ability to read
documents and legal provisions can help subjugated women and other oppressed
groups make use of their rights and demand more fairness. And female literacy
can enhance women's voices in family affairs and reduce gender inequality in
other fields, a benefit to men as well as women, since women's empowerment
through literacy tends to reduce child mortality and very significantly decrease
fertility rates.
The lives that are most burdened and
impoverished by over-frequent bearing and rearing of children are those of young
women. A greater voice of young women in family decisions tends, therefore, to
cut down birth rates sharply. For example, the fertility rates in the different
districts that make up India vary extremely widely, from almost 5 (roughly, five
children per couple) in some districts to less than 1.7 in some others.
Empirical investigations by Mamta Murthi and Jean Dreze indicate that only two
general variables significantly help to explain these differences: female
literacy and female economic participation.
In
sub-Saharan Africa, 40 percent of primary-age children have no opportunity for
schooling. Around the world, there are currently 125 million children who have
never, at any time, seen the inside of a classroom. A well coordinated global
initiative on basic education is crucial. To be sure, it is
also important that the priority of basic education be fully
accepted and pursued by the developing countries themselves. But a global
approach to schooling can inspire initiatives and bring ongoing efforts
together, as well as help with resources.
The need for
a new kind of partnership -- a global alliance -- on schooling is hard to
exaggerate. The time to live by positive goals has certainly come -- not least
for the leaders of G-8 countries who meet at a summit next month in Canada.
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