These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Comments on "Human Capital Accumulation in Post Green Revolution Rural Pakistan: a Progress Report".
    Author: Von Urff W.
    Journal: Pak Dev Rev; 1992; 31(4 Pt 1):488-90. PubMed ID: 12318402.
    Abstract:
    Comments are provided on Professor Sabot's paper on human capital accumulation in Pakistan. The findings on gender gaps in school attendance and the acquisition of cognitive skills, and the impact of the quality of rural schooling on cognitive skills and labor productivity, reflected a shortage of schools (supply problem); variation in quality determined variations in cognitive skills. There have been general assumptions that gender differences in education in developing countries are related to the prevalence of Islam, but this decomposition model says otherwise. Inadequate supply clearly in this study is the reason for educational differences by gender. The reasons that the gender gap persists in spite of new school construction in rural villages is not adequately explained. A question is raised about whether supply is strictly separate from demand, and whether parents who want schooling for their daughters press government into building in their village. When the gender gap in preschool ability is eliminated, girls outperform boys, but not enough attention, for those not educators, was devoted to explaining the measurement tool (Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices) and methodology. Quality of school issues, which were found to be related to cognitive skill acquisition, were not defined in such a way as to specify important factors. Cognitive skill of teachers, access to electricity, availability of desks, chairs, blackboards, and chalk, and provision of books and other educational material are plausible causative factors determining quality. A constraint analysis is required to determine the most severe constraints. A good guess would be that teachers are a major link to quality; quality might be improved with careful recruitment and adequate training. The methods used to calculate the cost benefit of improving quality of primary schools over increasing the number of middle schools is questioned as to whether the equation covers all the differences in costs. The question is whether improving the quality of teachers is captured in the calculation of costs. The study goes a long way in correcting wrong perceptions and in directing educational reform in appropriate cost effective ways.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]