final project for Edx online course

1. PEDAGOGY
A HUMAN CAPITAL BENEFICIARY

2. CONTENT
Brief note on human capital and pedagogy.
 Human capital and education.
Benefits of human capital to teaching and learning.

3. BRIEF NOTE
• Human capital is the stock of habits, knowledge, social and personality attributes embodied in the
ability to perform labour so as to produce economic value. It is unique and differs from any other
capital. It is needed for companies to achieve goals, develop and remain innovative. It is needed in
educational institutions to pass the right knowledge and skills to students of various fields and in the
right way. Companies and governments can invest in human capital for example through education
and training enabling improved levels of quality and production.
• Since 2012, the World Economic Forum has annually published its Global human capital Report, which
includes the Global Human Capital Index(GHIC).
• (Wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital)
• Credible measurement of education and health outcomes raises the importance of human capital
locally, nationally and globally. Good measurements is essential to developing research and analysis
to inform the design of policies that improve human capital. (2019 WDR, the changing nature of work
PG 55-56)

4. BRIEF NOTE
• Pedagogy as described as the act of teaching adopted by teachers in turn shapes their
actions, judgements and other teaching strategies by taking into consideration various
theories of learning.
• Pedagogy in educational vernacular has gained currency as a substitute for methods of
instructions or techniques of teaching. (Loughran, 2006; Van Manen, 1999). Returning to
etymological roots of pedagogue, one finds that the term refers not actually to a teacher,
but a slave who cared for and accompanied a student to and from school (Van Manen,
1994). From this perspective, pedagogy as the action of pedagogues implies an inter-
individual relationship, based on the concern for one another.
• Therefore pedagogy is not only relevant to societies at large, but also to the social and
emotional development of every school attending child.

5. HUMAN CAPITAL AND EDUCATION
• Prior to the nineteenth century, systematic investment in human capital was not considered
• specially important in any country. Expenditures on schooling, on-the-job training, and other
• similar forms of investment were quite small. This began to change radically during this
• century with the application of science to the development of new goods and more efficient
• methods of production, first in Great Britain, and then gradually in other countries.
• During the twentieth century, education, skills, and the acquisition of knowledge have become
• crucial determinants of a person’s and a nation’s productivity. One can even call the twentieth
• century the “Age of Human Capital” in the sense that the primary determinant of a country’s
• standard of living is how well it succeeds in developing and utilizing the skills and
• knowledge, and furthering the health and educating the majority of its population

6. CONTD.
Education matters crucially for many of the things that citizens and politicians care about. It is important
for individual earnings and for national prosperity. At a personal level, it matters for getting on in life,
and at a national level it matters for social mobility. It is a central determinant of inequality and poverty.
• There are three large policy domains for which education is critical. First, a country’s stock of skills is
• central to the potential for economic growth in a highly competitive international environment.
• Second, the distribution of that human capital is a key determinant of income inequality, ever more
• important with a high wage premium for skills. Third, the link between a person’s human capital and
• their background is a fundamental determinant of social mobility and the perpetuation of
• disadvantage.

7. CONTD.
• Education is central to three very important policy domains. First,
human capital and education are key, causal, drivers of growth and
prosperity. Second, the distribution of human capital across people is
an important determinant of income inequality, ever more important
with a high wage premium for skills. Third, with higher inequality has
come a renewed interest in social mobility, and the relationship
between a person’s human capital and their background is a major
determinant social mobility.

8. CONTD.
• Starting with growth, Goldin and Katz (2008) write simply that
higher levels of education lead to higher labour productivity, and
that higher aggregate levels of education in a country support
faster national economic growth. They explain why: “Economic
growth … requires educated workers, managers, entrepreneurs,
and citizens. Modern technologies must be invented, innovated,
put in place and maintained.” (pp. 1-2). Recent cross-country
analysis bears this out. Hanushek and Woessmann (2012) show
that measures of cognitive skills are strongly associated with
economic growth.

9. CONTD.
• To establish that the relationship is causal, they implement an
instrument variables strategy and use school institutional features
(the presence of external exit exams, the share of privately operated
schools, and the centralization of decision-making) as instruments.
The implication is therefore that these policies are effective drivers of
growth. They have since expanded the argument at greater length in
Hanushek and Woessmann (2015), and quantified the very high cost
of low skills on national income in Hanushek and Woessmann (2010).

10. BENEFITS OF HUMAN CAPITAL TO
TEACHING AND LEARNING.
• No country has achieved constant economic development without considerable investment in
• human capital. Previous studies have shown handsome returns to various forms of human
• capital accumulation: basic education, research, training, learning-by-doing and aptitude building.
• The distribution of education matters. Unequal education tends to have a negative
• impact on per capita income in most countries. Moreover, controlling for human capital
• distribution and the use of appropriate functional form specifications consistent with the asset
• allocation model make a difference for the effects of average education on per capita income,
• while failure to do so leads to insignificant and even negative effects of average education.
• Investment in human capital can have little impact on growth unless people can use education
• in competitive and open markets. The larger and more competitive these markets are, the
• greater are the prospects for using education and skills.

11. CONTD.
• Nurturing human capital is an essential and foundational part of social and
economic growth and prosperity, and is vital for fostering an educated
population that’s ready, willing and able to tackle 21st century challenges.
Plus, more education is also good for you: A 2006 National Bureau of
Economic Research paper found that “an additional four years of education
lowers five-year mortality by 1.8 percentage points.
• Prioritizing education and healthcare investment has been shown to have
enormous economic benefits. For example, Vietnam overhauling its
education and healthcare system coincided with a 1,500 percent increase in
GDP since 1985.