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Chapter 6 - Benefits and Costs of the Education Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2018

Bjorn Lomborg
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
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Summary

Within education, the targets that have the highest benefit-cost ratios are: • Reducing by 50% the number of children who are not attending preschool in sub-Saharan Africa, which has a benefit-cost ratio of 28 to 39. • Increasing the primary education enrollment ratio in sub-Saharan Africa from 75% to 100%, which has a benefit-cost ratio between 8.0 and 8.5. These findings can be explained in terms of the relative scarcity of human capital in Africa versus other regions. Other valuable targets are: • Improving school quality by increasing student test scores by one standard deviation, which has a benefit-cost ratio between 3.0 and 5.0. • Ensuring secondary school completion which has a 2.1 to 4.4 benefit-cost ratio. However, the following targets are relatively ineffective or there is large uncertainty regarding the benefit-cost ratio: • Providing vocational education within the main school system. • Education and training programs for older workers. An overall conclusion of the paper is that the vast majority of the Post-2015 education targets could not be achieved by 2030, hence the need to prioritize based on the findings of cost-benefit analysis.
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Prioritizing Development
A Cost Benefit Analysis of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
, pp. 119 - 142
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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