The
criteria to classify a country as a developed country or a developing country
revolves around their Gross Domestic Product and the Human Development Index.
Taking these criteria into consideration, the World Bank has created a list of more
than 100 developing countries. Considering that the United Nations is formed of
193 countries, having more than 100 developing countries in the world is
alarming. Developing countries face numerous problems such as unemployment,
corruption, economic inequality, and a wide external debt. With the aim of
solving these problems, developing countries are investing a large amount of
their national budget in actions such as signing free trade agreements, opening
the borders to foreign investment, and asking for international cooperation to
construct facilities. However, many international organizations suggest that developing
countries should invest in education and consider it as the best way to achieve
development in the long term.
Developing
countries are constantly signing free trade agreements with developed
countries. Governments and economy ministries of the developing countries do
this with the objective of selling their products in a market in which people
have better purchasing power to buy the products even if they are expensive. The
regulations will be the same for the 2 parties in the agreement but competition
of products will not be equal because their capabilities are not the same. The
developed country’s products are often of better quality than the products of
the developing country, which means that consumers will prefer the developed
countries’ products. In addition, developing countries’ products are crops and
farm products that hardly can compete with the technological products of the
developed countries. What is the best way to turn the developing countries’ farm
products into technological products? The answer is: through education. It is
not the same to plant some crops as to create a new model of computer. Nationals
of the developing countries must acquire the knowledge that will lead them to
an industrial production of products that can compete in equal conditions with
developed countries products. A Free Trade Agreement will be useful and fair until
there´s equality in the capacity of competition between trade parties.
Developing
countries are trying to attract foreign investment with the objective of increasing
job opportunities for their nationals. But to be attractive for investment,
developing countries must give privileges to the foreign companies, such as tax
privileges. Many companies investing don’t need to pay import and goods taxes,
and there is no customs control for their goods and services. We can find a
trend in the developing countries which is that even though foreign investment
provides job opportunities, these companies stay in the developing countries
just for a few years. Now is the time to ask ourselves: why the foreign
companies are leaving? It is because they don’t find qualified personnel to
perform tasks the job demands. Developing countries nationals don’t have the
knowledge and competencies to perform activities that demand a certain degree
of specialization. They do not have this knowledge because their governments
are not investing in education.
|International
cooperation is a good way to develop if it is used for education, but many
countries are using international cooperation for the construction of
facilities. Ports, airports, roads, factories are being constructed with
international cooperation funds. The international cooperation is being misled
to fields that are not such important such as education. Having the best buildings
and the best streets is not the way to indicate how developed a country is.
Many countries have “ghost infrastructures”; which means that buildings, ports,
airports, etc. are not being used because there is no reason to use them
because the foreign investment is leaving the country. They are not using these
facilities and because people have no idea about how to use the technologies installed
in these building because of their lack of education. Elements
that side are effects of the construction of infrastructures such as urban
planning, energy use, water management and other elements require nationals
with knowledge that they can get only trough quality education.
There
have been many international efforts to prove the importance of education. In 2000,
the United Nations members adopted the UN Millennium Declaration after establishing
the biggest problems the world was facing. Eight millennium goals were
established to be accomplished in 2015, one of which was to achieve universal
primary education. In 2005 the UN established the agency for the UN Decade of
Education for Sustainable Development. In the last decade, The Organization of
American States created the Department of Human Development, Education and
Employment and UNESCO created the Early Childhood Development Program. These previous
programs, agencies and treaties are just a small example of how deeply
international organizations care about education for development.
One
of the best examples of countries that developed through education is Costa
Rica. When you study the economic conditions of the countries near Costa Rica
(Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) it is easy to notice how
successful the Costa Rican development story is. The army was eliminated in
1948, and the national budget addressed to the army forces has been addressed
to education since then. Education has been a fundamental development pillar
since 1948; and the investment in education is around 6% and 8% of Costa Rica’s
GDP. The high education levels have attracted foreign investors and it also is
the incentive of the creation of free-trade zones. Investing in education
positioned Costa Rica as one of the countries with the highest levels of
foreign direct investment per capita in Latin America and also placed Costa
Rica in the 69th position on the Human Development Index worldwide.
In
conclusion, governments are taking diverse actions to achieve development, such
as free trade agreements, foreign investment and international cooperation to
construct facilities, but it seems that all these actions are not improving
developing countries’ economies and nationals’ lives. The reason is that, first
of all, developing countries’ governments should invest in education because
without education the other efforts are useless. Developing countries’ products
that are being marketed in the free trade agreements must turn from agriculture
to industry, which needs industrial education. Foreign companies investing in
developing countries need workers with technological knowledge, and facilities
that are being constructed, such as airports and ports also need people with
technological knowledge to perform with efficiency. International organizations
such as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization) have performed studies that show the importance of education for
development. According to UNESCO, poverty can drop 12% globally if nationals of
developing countries get basic reading skills. UNESCO also found that an extra
year of school increases individuals’ annual salary by 10%, and that GDP rises
annually by 0.37% when the population is well educated. Without education,
progress in other development indicators such as economy, governance, transport,
etc. are stagnant. In other words, education is the best way to achieve
development.
