Western education in developing countries: why it isn't as beneficial as we might think
Authors: Katrina Lee (Co-Events Director) & Jason Kaluarachchi (Project Leader)
“No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated”
With UNESCO stating that every US$1 spent on education can generate as much as US$10-14 in economic growth, it is evident how the returns of having educated citizens are far-reaching and powerful. Western education systems in particular have been praised for being the cornerstone of rapid modernisation in developed countries including Australia and the United States. Therefore, Western education systems have been increasingly introduced across developing countries to spark meaningful development and accelerate the velocity of economic growth.
However, what these education systems fail to address is the vast differences in culture, tradition and lifestyle that exist between developing nations and the Western world. For example, several developing countries are reliant on agriculture, yet schools fail to teach students how to care for crops or cultivate land. Another forgotten consideration is the significant gap between the working-age population and number of jobs available, leading to a genuine lack of opportunity. As a result, the education system in the developing world begs for a more tailored and people-centred solution.
So, what is a Western education system?
At the heart of the Western education system is institutionalised learning - formalised learning which follows a regimented curriculum. The institution has strict gradations, typically starting from elementary school to secondary school and on to higher education. Such a conveyor belt model of education has the primary goal of developing commodities that will suit an industrial production line.
Western education sees teachers assume the role of experts, with the classroom being in an indoor setting that includes desks, chairs, chalkboards and writing materials. Within these classrooms, students are expected to interact with each other based on a set of school rules. Through simulating a ‘miniature society’, schools promote the importance of following societies’ universal rules and norms, and allow children to better assimilate into adulthood.
Further, Western classrooms are centred around learning specific skills that are necessary for an advanced industrial society dependent on specialisation. For example, modern societies today are heavily reliant on manufacturing, so understanding the inner-workings of a machine requires advanced scientific and engineering knowledge only learned in schools. By providing students with skills that ultimately make them productive members of the workforce, Western education systems have been argued to be the cornerstone of the modernisation of Western countries.
The Rise of Western Education Systems: A Modernisation Perspective
Modernisation theory studies the process of social evolution and the development of societies. It suggests that countries which undertook urbanisation, industrialisation and the spread of education have ‘modernised’ and experienced significant economic growth compared to those who did not. Evidence of this includes how post 1960, the growth of industrialised Western countries consistently outpaced that of African countries, with Sub-Saharan real incomes falling by nearly half relative to their Western counterparts.
Because of how ‘modernised’ countries experienced significant economic development, modernisation theorists have postulated that countries that adopt Western and democratic values are more productive, and that ‘traditional’ values upheld by developing countries are ‘barriers to development’. Resultantly, modernisation theorists argue that ‘traditional’ societies should undergo a similar type of nation-building and mimic the West’s path to development.
Therefore, Western education in developing countries has become increasingly prominent, allowing citizens to contribute to the growth of national wealth through their creative abilities and productive efforts. It has been estimated that if 75% more 15-year-olds in forty-six of the world’s poorest countries were to reach the lowest OECD benchmark for mathematics, economic growth could improve by 2.1% from its baseline and 104 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty.
‘The international development model of education posits that mass, state-sponsored schooling is: (1) central to the creation of a “modern” nation-state; (2) central to the development of “modern” workers and families ; and, thus (3) central to a state’s “modern” economic growth and international acceptance. The general conceptualisation of education and development has received critical attention since its inception, but has yet to be significantly challenged’
Nancy Kendall (2009)
A Forgotten Consideration of Education: The Destruction of Cultural Diversity
However, introducing Western education systems in developing countries perpetuates a Western monoculture, contributing to the destruction of tradition and cultural diversity in developing countries. Wade Davis of the National Geographic Society acknowledges that education as a concept is - by definition - the inculturation of a child into a certain way of being. In developing countries, these ways of being were built upon years of tradition and passed down generation by generation, forming a cultural way of life. But when Western education systems are introduced in developing countries, Western ways of being are projected onto children, and values such as individualism and universalism overlook traditional values of collectivism and particularism. With essentially the same curriculum being imposed on developing nations, the uniqueness of human individualism is destroyed and replaced with ubiquitous Western ideologies.
“Different ways of learning create different human beings. If you were raised in Colorado to believe that a mountain is an inert pile of rock waiting to be mined, you’re going to have a very different relationship to that mountain from a kid from Southern Peru who believes that the mountain is a spirit, a protective deity who will determine his destiny throughout his life.”
Wade Davis, National Geographic Society, in Schooling the World
Furthermore, Western schools often adopt an entirely English pedagogy to discourage the use of native languages, with some schools banning any conversation in their mother tongue. With time, these languages and the wealth of history that they represent are phased out of society, contributing to the destruction of cultural diversity. Indeed, of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken across the globe today, nearly half are in danger of extinction in the next century, with one language disappearing every fortnight.
The loss of cultural diversity through Western education systems is also evidenced through the phasing out of traditional values. For instance, in the northern region of Ladakh, India, education historically focused on spiritual teachings, such as the traditional Buddhist values of kindness and compassion. But now that modern education systems pervade Ladakh, children seek material success by wanting more money, a big house or a nice car. Moreover, despite being a region traditionally dependent on agriculture, Ladakhi children now neglect learning subsistence and agricultural trading methods. As such, traditional skills are being phased out and replaced with modern skills to be used in an urban consumer culture.
“They (today’s Ladakhi children) don’t know how to take the animals up to graze, how to care for the crops. They can’t do anything.”
Farmer in Ladakh, India, in Schooling the World
A Forgotten Consideration of Education: The Systemic Lack of Opportunity
Western education systems romanticise the idea that high-performing students will be able to utilise their knowledge to uptake greater schooling or professional job opportunities. In reality, the vast majority of students in the developing world are unable to secure formal employment following their studies, due to (1) a lack of job opportunity in their local communities and (2) income inequalities resulting in the poorest being unable to access higher education.
When promoting the implementation of Western education systems in developing countries, modernisation theorists fail to consider the absence of job opportunities in the developing world. The shortage of jobs is illustrated by how only 63 million jobs were created between 2000-2007, yet Africa’s working-age population grew at 2.6% annually to 96 million. This evidences a significant gap, and raises doubts that the region would ever be able to generate enough jobs to meet the growing population. Additionally, the perceived competitiveness of the labour market has instead created social and political instability, as seen through how the Arab Spring was partly associated with the frustration among youth about the absence of merit-based hiring in the public and private sector. Therefore, the lack of job opportunities for young people has led to involuntary increases in the age of household formation. This has indeed gone against the favourable outcomes of education, increasing vulnerable employment and poverty amongst young people.
Furthermore, many families are unable to invest in higher education opportunities for their children, due to the incredibly inflated price of tuition. It has been found that in Uganda, it takes an average of 7-8 income earners to support just one student at a public university. This has made many parents resort to selling off land, even though Uganda’s economy is 80% agricultural and land is their primary source of income. As a result, it is primarily the children of the rich who make it to higher education, because they have been afforded the luxury of good primary and secondary education. This truly amplifies the discrepancies between the rich and poor, and how the opportunity to pursue higher education is highly dependent on the wealth of the family.
A People-Centred Solution to Education
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to the ‘education deficit’ in the developing world. While a Western style curriculum might be deemed appropriate in ‘wealthier areas’, those who are poorer are significantly disadvantaged.
Instead, a new system could be considered under the ‘people-centred development’ framework. This takes into account the notion that individuals in particularly poor countries would benefit more from a non-academic education, that is not explicitly designed to alter the cultural values of their traditional societies.
A people-centred approach to education is one that acknowledges and embraces the following qualities.
Relevance
One of the key aspects of a people-centred perspective involves ensuring that “the well-being of people and the living systems of the planet that is their home, come first”. This involves designing a curriculum which teaches individuals relevant skills which will benefit both them and most importantly, their communities. Such an approach aligns with one of the ‘traditional values’ in the developing world coined ‘collectivism’, which relies on cohesiveness among individuals and relates to the idea that the group (family or village) comes before self-interest.
This can be achieved through teaching students relevant “life skills”, enabling them to improve their financial prospects and well-being, and consequently having a positive impact on the economic and social well-being of their communities. These may include financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills, health maintenance and management skills, as well as administrative capabilities such as teamwork, problem solving and project management.
Through placing a heavy emphasis on self-efficacy as a critical foundation of positive livelihood and health-seeking behaviours, communities are better equipped to prevent disease and educated individuals are empowered to care for others. Additionally, programs covering entrepreneurship enable individuals to expand upon the skills involved in agricultural trading, and empowers them to partake in business activities which would benefit the overall community. Such a form of education would not require the need to access higher education, as children are instilled with the necessary skills to make a life for themselves. Access to education is thus a lot more equitable , narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.
The Barefoot education movement highlighted the merits of individuals being taught skills that are both relevant and impactful to their communities. This program taught many illiterate men and women in North West India to become solar engineers and doctors, empowering them to return home to ‘electrify their home villages’ for the first time. One of the key reasons why this movement was so successful was because teachers drew as far as possible on their traditional knowledge, meaning students are able to learn in a way that is digestible and relevant to them.
Empowerment
Furthermore, a people-centred development approach understands how “it is the individual who has within himself or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes and self-directed behaviour”. Incorporating this notion into education involves altering the pedagogy from one that relies on a teacher at the front of the room to a model that is centred around children collaborating and learning from one another.
The traditional Western education model assumes the teacher as the expert who is tasked with educating the students. However, an approach that can be implemented in developing countries and has become increasingly popular is learning-by-teaching. Koh, Lee and Lim (2018) argue that the benefits of learning-by-teaching arise because children need to retrieve what they have previously studied. This allows the knowledge to be passively re-studied, resulting in a deeper and longer-lasting acquisition of information. An example of such a pedagogy is Sugata Mitra’s Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLE), having removed teachers altogether and simultaneously allowing children to learn from and teach one another. Mitra recognises that empowering students to share and teach others within the community is one of the most valuable ways to learn.
Although SOLEs are still in the process of formal development, initial experiments have evidenced the success of self-directed learning, especially in developing countries. In early 1999, Mitra’s “hole in the wall experiment” sunk a computer into the opening of a wall in Kalkaji, New Delhi, which was located in an expansive slum. The computer was available to anyone who passed by, but had no instructions for its use. Within six months, children from the neighbourhood had learned to operate the computer, browse the internet and download games, music and videos. The crux of the study emphasised the sheer speed that children in developing countries can learn knowledge when self-directed.
Evolutionary and Slow
Lastly, another aspect of people-centred development is the fact that change should be evolutionary and slow. This insinuates that small, incremental improvements have more impact and are more sustainable than technologically sophisticated ‘fast tracked’ development.
There is no denying that introducing technology, such as computer or mobile phone aided instruction could boost student learning in developing countries. This is echoed by Charles Kenny, senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development, who observed that “technology has become one of the greatest vehicles for change. Young people are natural adopters of new technologies and there is certainly potential for technology and digital media to be a force for innovation, education and change”.
However, it is important to recognise that technological solutions cannot solve all problems, and instead can be a driver of inequality. For example, some schools in Kenya are extremely underfunded, meaning they are inadequately staffed with teachers who have grown up with limited access to technology. These teachers require intensive training to understand and use technological resources for their learners, however there is the tendency to provide them with minimal training within a short time - with studies proving this to be ineffective. Consequently, students are unable to wholly reap the benefits of the technology due to a lack of funding for teaching staff and training.
Additionally, marginalised groups including young girls and those who are poor may be excluded from the use of technology. As part of a study in 2014, UNESCO identified that while girls tended to use mobile devices for reading and learning more than their male counterparts, they were disadvantaged in terms of access. This is largely due to cultural resistance to equality in some countries, and how there is a lack of governmental support to ensure there is equal access to technological resources. Consequently, more work needs to be done to promote the equitable introduction of technological education for men and women of all ages.
As a result, the introduction of technology into developing countries for educational purposes must be evolutionary and slow. This slow introduction of technology allows time for governments and communities alike to push for equality and change, and provides individuals with the opportunity to adapt and come up with ways to put the technology to efficient use.
Conclusion
Every child should have the right to a quality education so that they can have better chances in life, including employment opportunities and better health. However in the developing world, children are continually being denied education, contributing to poverty and the country’s slow economic development. While implementing Western education systems in developing countries is beneficial to an extent, there needs to be greater recognition of some of the cultural and systemic differences between the developed and developing world.
Adopting a people-centred development approach to education recognises these differences, and acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. This approach involves ensuring students are equipped with skills that consider their traditional values and lifestyles, and empowers them to collaborate and learn amongst themselves. Additionally, it understands that technology should be implemented slowly so that it does not become a driver of inequality. Therefore, being more mindful of disparities between the developing and Western world will improve education outcomes for many, ultimately inspiring a brighter and more positive future for generations to come.