Thursday 2 January 2014

Pakistan economic growth and education

Intellectuals and economic growth. Hmm. What can we offer?

In recent news, Prof Ahsan Iqbal, the Minister for Planning etc in Pakistan (sounds ominous when there's still a Planning department!), proclaimed that economic stability was possible through a knowledge based research economy.

Poignant words in a country wracked by bubbling civil disorder and fundamentalism. 

He is in many respects right. When we invest in ourselves we reach beyond the basics that our parents and home culture can give us, we stretch ourselves into the unknown and we improve our own understanding of life and of others. Far better to be educated than to be ignorant and Prof. Iqbal rightly alludes to Muslims' excellent history of education and the legacy, we can infer, than the Arabic world bequeathed the west and its scientific and industrial revolution.

Prior to the Renaissance, higher learning was to be found in the great universities of the east - the academics of the Arabic world sustained the momentum that the Greeks had provided: they produced great philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians. 

Then sadly academic growth was stifled by a rise in fundamentalism and the wars with the crusaders. Arabic learning passed subtly but surely into Spain and then into Paris and Oxford and Cambridge: the division in the Christian church them permitted nonconformism to emerge and that was a fertile ground for thought to flow freely; and as governments took a back seat, entrepreneurs were relatively free to develop what became the industrial revolution. That revolution empowered the west (and its aggressive governments); it relieved people from poverty (gradually but surely, as even Marx admitted); it produced the plethora of goods and services we increasingly take for granted.

But is education the cause of economic stability (and growth) or a symptom? It's a controversial notion -  yet we can gain a glimpse of the causal logic when we look at our academics in the universities: are they financially free? Some may be, but most will not be. They are dependent on government largesse or the corporations that modern western universities are turning into for their salaries and pensions. They are generally not entrepreneurs. Indeed, when academics teach about entrepreneurial activity or business it can be done with disdain or an aloofness that the Ancient Greeks would have commended. 

What about the evidence? Is there anything in history that supports the growth of education as being a necessary condition for economic stability or growth?

In Britain's development, much of the development occurred in a society with only a rudimentary education; religious feelings were strong and intolerance of foreigners and Catholics ran high despite the humanism taught by intellectuals - and in many cases religion encouraged reinvestment rather than profligate expenditure. Schools only taught the modicum of reading, writing, and arithmetic: enough to get the peasants and their children work of a higher standard. Only a very small elite went to university, yet arguably much of Britain's industrial development grew from its supposedly uncouth backwaters of Birmingham, Manchester and the great northern cities. London, as always, grew on trade and banking, but the nuts and bolts came from the densely populated, barely educated peoples who turned their new found freedoms into tinkering and innovation. The elite immersed themselves generally in war, politics, and country pursuits. The nonconformists - Quaker families such as the Lloyds, Cadburys and Barclays - created long lasting companies that employed thousands and served millions (and still do today). Very few of the highly educated were actually responsible for Britain's astounding economic growth. The same is true in America: it was not its educated elite that were responsible for its prodigious growth in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Indeed, one thesis in British history is that as the mercantile classes became richer, they sought to send their children to the elitist schools that the aristocracy and landed gentry patronised - and that was the end of Britain's economy miracle. It is a thesis worth considering. The schools diverted attention from the grubbiness of money making and industrialism to enjoying the races, fine art, clever conversation, and society. 

Academics, Prof Iqbal, needs to understand, do not a rich nation make. Their role is to enlighten and to espouse the greatness of humanism, toleration, and the love of learning - on that I think we would both agree - and also to understand that they need to get out of the way of entrepreneurs and wealth creators, something, as Minister of Planning, I think he might not comprehend. 

Education alone does not create wealth - rather the curriculum grows with the market place. As economies develop, companies (or churches or local charities) have an incentive to secure a modicum of relevant education for their workers. A company that does not invest in its colleagues and workers will lose its edge in the market place to those that do. 

This is what the Quakers did. They provided schools and learning to their workers. And because it came from the needs of the marketplace, the education had to be relevant. When it is imposed from high above by intellectuals in charge of ministries, we can guarantee it will be barely relevant, mainly out of date, and when supplied by the government, it will cost a fortune (to the tax payer), and the kids will become disaffected and turned off the great learning that Prof Iqbal and myself would love all to enjoy. 

Where we differ, I assume, is that I prefer pupils to come to the learning they would like to follow rather than be told this will be good for you because this is my vision of the future.  Economists, educationalist and academics are often at fault at creating a rosy picture of the future that includes their  own particular likes. But the business world and the febrile world of innovation does not work like that - the open society, as Popper called it, is open to change and what change occurs is unpredictable. The future needs of the marketplace cannot be predicted. Who could have predicted the ubiquity of smart phones, personal computers, video-conferencing, email, and digital photography? 

Economic growth comes from the mavericks, the innovators, the people who quietly tinker away with machines and software - but fundamentally, it comes from freedom: the freedom to try, the freedom to be yourself and to follow your dream. As intellectuals - and I love fine art, good conversation, classical music and literature - this is what we need to explain to the world and to our friends and influential folk. Freedom first, then education will come of its own accord. 

That is our duty, not to place the rest of humanity in our favourite mental chains. 


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