Economic Growth and Development

expenditure as a fraction of GDP, or pupil/teacher ratios even when controlling
for parental education (Hanushek and Kimko, 2000).
The Education for All (EFA) initiative and the MDGs promoted by interna-
tional donors as well as the policy pronouncements of various developing-coun-
try governments are all pushing for universal primary education. Many African
countries have come close to achieving universal primary education (UPE) at
various points during the past half-century, though the hoped-for social and
economic benefits have not materialized. Box 6.1 discusses the failure of such

126 Sources of Growth in the Modern World Economy since 1950

Box 6.1 Universal primary education in Tanzania

In the late 1970s Tanzania raised the gross primary school enrolment rate to 98 per

cent; by 2000 it had declined to less than 60 per cent. UPE became a euphemism

for poor-quality education. There were insufficient high-school graduates to staff

the expansion which meant that less than 50 per cent of teachers reached the mini-

mum qualifications set by the Education Ministry. Of those children completing

the seven years of schooling around 80 per cent failed the final examination. Since

2000 there has been a new drive to achieve UPE in Tanzania through the heavily

donor-supported Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP) and since

2004 an accompanying programme to expand secondary education. The emphasis

was again on quantity and expanding physical capacity to accommodate numbers.

The government claimed that the national net enrolment rate had increased from

59 per cent in 2000 to 95 per cent in 2005,implying an extra 3 million children in

primary school. As with previous efforts the new drive to UPE has been associated

with a reduction in the standard of qualifications required for teachers. This was

not surprising, given that the number of new teachers required in 2008 represented

over 40 per cent of secondary school graduates in 2006. New teacher training

colleges did open but shortages remained. The pupil/teacher ratio increased from

46:1 to 60:1. The evidence on education (as opposed to teacher) quality is mixed.

Drop-out rates remained high, reaching nearly 40 per cent in some regions. In

2002–03 over 20 per cent of pupils repeated the fourth standard, the year in which

students sit the first set of public examinations. There has, though, been an

improvement in quality as judged by the Primary School Leaving Examination

(PSLE) results, with the pass rate increasing from 19.9 per cent in 1999 to 40.1 per

cent in 2003. Although the aspiration was universal education there exist very

large inequalities in enrolment rates between poor and rich households and urban

and rural areas (Wedgwood, 2007). A reason to be positive this time is that the

incentives to acquire primary education are more apparent. Data from the

2000/2001 Tanzania Integrated Labour Force Survey (ILFS) showed that primary

gr aduates earned double the wages of those with no education. Education in

Tanzania has also been found to have a positive impact on productivity in agricul-

ture and a negative impact on fertility. This indicates that the labour market for

those with post-primary education is not saturated which was one of the concerns

raised by Pritchett (2001). This latter effect may have been due to economic liber-

alization which has raised the return to education in urban areas.