Economic Growth and Development

Education and health in developing countries

Education

Literacy is a widely discussed measure of human capital; shows both how
much human capital exists at a point in time and how quickly it is rising; and
is a component of the widely used Human Development Index (HDI)
published by the UNDP since 1990. Table 6.1 shows literacy rates in various
middle- and low-income countries in the late 2000s. Although there is a
general tendency for richer countries (for example, Brazil, Russia) to have
higher literacy rates than poorer countries (India, Bangladesh), there is an
enormous range of outcomes. Sri Lanka and China, for example, which at
the end of the 1970s were outliers in various other indicators of human
development, have high rates of literacy despite being poor developing coun-
tries. In most parts of the world male literacy is much higher than female
literacy, reflecting greater access of male children to schooling and probably
more learning through interaction in work and social life outside the house-
hold. In some cases the enormous gap between male and female literacy
(28.6 per cent in Pakistan, 24.4 per cent in India) is an indication of more
general gender discrimination. In all cases youth literacy rates (15–24-year-
olds) are higher and in some case much higher than in the population over-
all. This reflects recent improvements in education and is a guide to the
likely future (positive) evolution of literacy rates. In some cases the differ-
ence is substantial. Female youth literacy in India, Pakistan, Sierra Leone
and Uganda is around 20 per cent higher than female literacy in the popula-
tion as a whole.

118 Sources of Growth in the Modern World Economy since 1950

Table 6.1 Adult and youth literacy rates

Country Year Adult literacy rates Youth literacy rates

(15+ years) (15–24-year-olds)

Total Male Female Total Male Female

Bangladesh 2010 56.8 61.3 52.2 77.0 75.5 78.5

Pakistan 2009 54.9 68.6 40.3 70.7 79.1 61.5

Sri Lanka 2010 91.2 92.6 90.0 98.2 97.7 98.6

India 2006 62.8 75.2 50.8 81.1 88.4 74.4

China 2010 94.3 97.1 91.3 99.4 99.5 99.3

Brazil 2009 90.3 90.2 90.4 98.1 97.4 98.7

Russian 2010 99.6 99.7 99.5 99.7 99.6 99.7

Federation

Ghana 2010 67.3 73.2 61.2 80.8 81.7 79.9

Sierra Leone 2010 42.1 53.6 31.4 59.4 69.1 50.1

Uganda 2010 73.2 82.6 64.6 87.4 89.6 85.5

Source:Data compiled from World Development Indicators(2013).