Abstract
It is an old and widely held belief that education can contribute to economic development, but neither educators nor economists have a recognized theory of how it happens. Educators' expertise in curriculum development does not prepare them to identify types of education that will promote economic development, while economists' expertise in price theory has been less useful than many expected. Despite considerable refinement of their measures of the economic value of educational resources,1 economists are unable to advise educational policymakers reliably on how to change low-productivity communities into high-productivity ones. This article suggests that another kind of economic expertise-the theory of the effects of technology on institutions-can show educational policymakers how to contribute to economic development.2 It presents a fragment of a research project showing the economic function of education to be the transmission of technologically relevant skills. It uses the history of rural education in China, Mexico, Japan, and the United States to demonstrate that technologically appropriate curricula are a necessary part of development policy. Absence of discussion of existing conditions and obstacles to development reflects this intent and is not evidence of my ignorance of them. Technology is the total stock of human know-how that is applicable to physical phenomena. It is operational scientific knowledge, the body of techniques and tools capable of producing real income. It has grown cumulatively throughout human history and is clearly a continuing factor in human experience. Every community must apply some fraction of this stock to survive, while it must borrow or improve such know-how in order to develop.
Published Version
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