Education and the Unemployment Problem in Kenya

Since receiving their independence in 1960s, many African countries have given high priority to expanding formal education. These countries have allocated most of their scarce resources for expansion of primary and secondary educational institutions. To great extent, their efforts have been supplemented by various international assistance agencies, on basis that economic development depends on expansion of modern system of education. These views were supported by human capital and modernization theories that provided justification for high expectations placed on formal education and training institutions as engines of growth.I As Fields points out, a common belief amongst development planners in 1960s was notion that unemployment in LDC's (less developed countries) was largely of structural nature, due to shortage of skilled manpower.2 This developmentalist perspective assumed that economically poor nations were unable to progress because they did not have sufficient education to support modern occupational structure and were too traditional in outlook to participate in modern world. Education was, therefore, considered to be an investment in human capital that would yield substantial return in form of economic growth. Bowman described this as the human capital investment revolution in economic thought.3 Economists began to

Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Sociology · Unemployment · Education Systems and Policy · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare

• Social Change and the Relationships Between Education and Employment

  Open Access•T Yabiku, Scott T Yabiku et al.•Population Research and Policy…•2009

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