There are many reasons why education is important and this report focuses on its contribution to economic growth and outcomes. Education ‘can be defined as the stock of skills, competencies, and other productivity-enhancing characteristics’.
In general, education increases the efficiency of each individual worker and helps economies to move up the value chain beyond manual tasks or simple production processes. There is a wealth of literature on this topic, showing the long held expectation that human capital formation (a population’s education and health status) plays a significant role in a country’s economic development. Better education leads not only to higher individual income but is also a necessary (although not always sufficient) precondition for long-term economic growth.