EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: A COMPARATIVE HISTORIAL COMPENDIUM OF THEORY AND EVIDENCE

Abstract

Thinking education could boost their economic well-being, many Sub-Saharan nations (in
collaboration with multinational and bilateral donors), have devoted, and continue to devote a lot of
treasure and effort towards education. Despite the huge sums of government donor provided funds that
are being allocated to education, these countries still languish in their ability to catch up with the rest of
the world in economic development. It might be due to this lack of economic success within the SSAs
why there is a lack of consensus among professionals regarding the link between economic growth and
education. That is, several studies have indicated both a lack of and positive association and between
economic growth and the rate of growth of education (human capital) measured using alternative
methods. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that education has a positive impact on growth but with
significant country variation. Using cross-section panel data regression, we find positive correlations
between growth and various definitions of human capital. We also update previous work and present
several comparative historical indicators to measure progress (or its lack of) in education among the
SSAs.