Abstract:

Why billions of dollars spent annually on education in developing countries appear to have so little impact on the economic growth within these countries? Why are increases in education not reflected in economic development within these countries? These central questions frame the missing linkages between education, human capital, and economic growth addressed in this paper. Education is expected to increase the productivity of a nation. Thus education is desirable for the contribution it makes to the quality of life for people through increased economic growth. As such, each nation invested in education hoping to achieve economic growth. In this paper, panel data summary analysis of secondary data was conducted to establish trends of education and economic growth of 37 Saharan African countries from the year 2000- 2018 based on their income levels. The findings of the study showed that within-country specific variations over time explain the differences between education and economic growth in low-income, middle income and upper-middle-income countries in Sub-Sahara African countries. It is concluded that the human capital approach should be adopted to address the observed trend of missing linkage between education and economic growth. Possible human capital approaches for strengthening linkages between education and economic growth were drawn.

Keywords:

Missing, Linkages, Education, economic growth, Sub Saharan Africa, human capital theory.