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30. The Role of Education in ASEAN Economic Growth
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
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144 Gavin Jones By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 30. THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN ASEAN ECONOMIC GROWTH GAVIN JONES Reprinted in abridged form from Gavin Jones, “The Role of Education in ASEAN Economic Growth: Past and Future”, in Development and Challenge: Southeast Asia in the New Millennium, edited by Wong Tai-Chee and Mohan Singh (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1999), pp. 215–38, by permission of the author and the publisher. RECENT TRENDS IN ASEAN EDUCATION Now that Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia have been accepted as members of ASEAN, generalisations about ASEAN are much more difficult to make, and this is no less true of education than of economic growth or political matters. The original ASEAN five countries and Brunei have all achieved something approaching universal primary education,1 and in this, they have been greatly assisted by sharp declines in fertility rates, which have led to actual declines in numbers in primary school ages in Singapore since the late 1960s, in Thailand since the early 1980s and recently, to a levelling off of such numbers in Indonesia. In Vietnam, the literacy level was raised by massive literacy campaigns in the late 1940s and 1950s, but universal primary school enrolment is still not attained: only 85 percent of primary school-aged children could be accommodated in schools, and fewer than 50 percent of pupils entering primary school completed it (Kinh, 1991). Although something approaching universal primary education is aimed for by the year 2000, this will be seriously hampered by qualitative deficiencies throughout the system: outmoded textbooks; poorly trained and poorly paid teachers, most of whom have to “moonlight” to make ends meet; physical facilities and teaching aids which, according to one observer, are “miserably poor” (Hac, 1991:37). Laos lags seriously in primary education. The net enrolment rate at the primary school ages of 6–10 was officially estimated to be 73 percent, up from 63 percent five years earlier.2 The target is to reach 80 percent in the year 2000. But the net enrolment rate does not tell the whole story. A recent study showed that 46 percent of primary school students are overaged (World Bank, 1995); repetition rates are estimated at 30 percent; and probably only 30 percent of children complete primary school. Despite these continuing severe shortcomings in primary education in some 030 AR Ch 30 22/9/03, 12:44 PM 144 The Role of Education in ASEAN Economic Growth 145 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville countries, in general, the emphasis in the ASEAN region has shifted to secondary and higher education. Great progress has also been made at these levels (see Table 1). In 1970, Thailand and Indonesia lagged noticeably behind other Southeast Asian countries in secondary education, but they have made considerable progress since then, albeit following quite different trajectories of expansion. In Indonesia, progress over the 1970s and early 1980s was steady, but it slowed during the 1980s, culminating in an actual decline in secondary school enrolments in the late 1980s (Oey-Gardiner, 1997), a decline which flew in the face of official government policy. Far higher costs of education at the secondary than at the primary level meant that poverty was probably the main factor. Secondary enrolments began to pick up again in the last few years, before the economic crisis broke out in 1997, with the introduction of (theoretically) compulsory secondary schooling and intensified efforts to increase transition rates from primary to secondary school. Thailand’s gross secondary enrolment ratio of about 29 percent was the lowest among the ASEAN5 in 1990, but educational authorities made great efforts to increase the transition rate from primary to secondary education, with remarkable success, raising this rate from about 50 percent in 1990 to 85 percent in 1995 (Sussangkarn, 1995:244). Opening lower secondary school classes in primary schools helped, as did parents’ growing realisation that secondary education is essential for obtaining good jobs in the modern sector. In both Indonesia and Thailand, the growth of the secondary educated population is proving to be one of the major trends of the 1990s. According to long-term planning projections in Indonesia, over the TABLE 1: Enrolment in Secondary and Higher Education as Percentage of Age Group in Southeast and East Asia Secondary Higher 1970 1992 1980 1992 Southeast Asia Indonesia 16 38 4 10 Philippines 46 74 28 28 Thailand 17 33...