Education and economic growth variations: Implications for post COVID-19 sustainable development recovery strategy in low-income countries

Abstract

No country is like any other, therefore it is vital to ascertain factors explaining the differences in education and economic growth among and within the low-income countries. The main question is why are there variations in countries? The answers to this question has the potential to provide insights for designing and implementing post Corona virus infectious disease-19 (COVID-19) recovery strategies aimed at promoting inclusive sustainable development. Prior COVID-19 Sub Saharan Africa region contained the largest number of low income countries with low economic growth and lower access to education. An understanding of factors that explain the variations that existed before the COVID-19 should be considered developing recovering strategies. The study used a panel data summary statistics of education and economic growth dataset from the year 2000 to 2018 from 15 low income countries in Sub Saharan African to examine factors that explain the variations in education and economic growth patterns in those countries. The findings reflected that within individual countries rather than between countries variations explain the differences in education and economic growth. The findings led to the conclusion that education and economic growth variation trends observed in Sub Saharan Africa for the past 19 years are explained by variations overtime and not by time invariant factors between countries. Drawing on the observed trends overtime the implications for post COVID-19 sustainable development recovery strategy formulation are presented in this study.