Financing secondary education in developing countries: Strategies for sustainable growth

Abstract

Keith Lewin and Francoise Caillods have prepared what is unquestionably the most thorough and thoughtful study of secondary education in developing countries of the past two decades. Lewin is director of the Centre for International Education at Sussex University and a coauthor of an earlier outstanding assessment of the financial needs for Education for All. Caillods is deputy director of UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and has written several books on educational planning and school mapping. The book begins with a statement of the problem—the scarcity of secondary education opportunities in the developing world and especially in Africa—provides a rationale for change, reviews via the case study method several positive and negative examples, and concludes with two rich chapters laying an extensive menu of policy options that policy makers should consider. Extensive and up-to-date data are provided throughout, as are citations to other research that contributes to the argument. While the book is multiauthored, Lewin insures coherence by coauthoring all but one chapter. Concerning the rationale, the authors observe that the technological demands of the expanding world economy require nations to upgrade their labor force if they wish to participate in future growth. The authors contend that those nations that have extensive secondary education systems appear to fare better, while those that have limited secondary education systems appear to fall behind. This generalization is supported both through cross-national analysis and through case studies of Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, and China, countries that have encouraged secondary education expansion, and of Malawi and Costa Rica, which have restrained their secondary education. An additional chapter explores Francophone Africa. From these accounts, it is apparent that countries vary widely in terms of their provision of secondary education. While the study documents this well-known fact, it does not devote much attention to explaining these differences—is it because of institutional reasons embedded in colonial models, is it because of distinctive development theories adopted by national leaders, or is it because of a shortage of financial resources? While the book focuses on the latter theme and seems to say

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