Is education a panacea?

I was thinking to continue with the employment issue for today by focusing on education presented as a panacea and some times as a miraculous cure for improving the state of economic development. But I felt the need to check the number of columns I reserved recently on this field; I was surprised to notice that my last five columns were on subjects related to the labor market issues in one manner or other. While I was about to decide to shift into another field, I listened Saturday morning to George Papandreou, former Greek prime minister and president of the Socialist International (SI). Papandreou was invited to İstanbul by two Turkish Social Democrat think tanks, Turkish Social Economic Political Research Foundation (TÜSES) and the Social Democracy Foundation (SODEV) and by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), the German Social Democrat think tank.
Mohamed Bouazizi who immolated himself The SI president spoke, as it could be expected, about the socialist movement's policy responses to the problems arising from the clash between conditions imposed by irreversible globalization and the established social rights and welfare inside the limits of the old nation state. Saturday's conference was for me another occasion to note how terms like “educational reform,” “better education,” etc. constitute the leitmotiv in social democratic programs. To be fair, I should say that Papandreou pointed out the necessity of investing more in research and development (R&D) as well as in infrastructure to restart the growth machine, but finally it is obvious that great hope is being placed in education to cure structural illnesses. The Republican People's Party (CHP), a member of the Socialist International, does not constitute an exception. Its spokespeople also present educational reform as almost a unique step for solving our economic problems and they are not alone in this hope. The vice president in charge of economic affairs Ali Babacan does not miss a single occasion without mentioning how educational reform is important for Turkey. Although we are still waiting this reform, to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government sizably increased educational expenditures in recent years and compulsory education has been recently increased to 12 years. But Turkey needs much more given the pitiful state of the education level of the working age population. The average schooling for this population is roughly 7 years. For the sake of comparison let me point out that in South Korea this average reached almost 12 years. Beside quantity,quality also counts. Turkey, with Mexico, is in the bottom of the PISA ranking, an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study measuring the quality of education. We are able to well educate a small elite, but unable to provide basic skills to the huge majority. No doubt, providing “more and better education” constitutes the main challenge for Turkey. The sooner the government starts comprehensive and radical reform in education the better it would be. But I am afraid that educational reform became in this country a panacea that would provide the opportunity to avoid difficult reforms, particularly those regarding labor market flexibility. Indeed, even if courageous education reforms are rapidly implemented, its contribution to economic development will start to emerge within a decade at the earliest. So, the question is what to do with the existing working age population, of which the majority is poorly educated and unskilled? Creating new jobs, particularly for women, should be accelerated as well as the increase of the labor productivity if we want a high and sustainable economic growth. This can not be achieved without courageous reforms in the labor market and without the help of large and efficient “on the job training” schemes. Now, let me point out that the government postponed indefinitely all labor market reform projects that were designed in the National Employment Strategy. Let me finish with another concern. More education alone could create more problems than it solves, if it is not placed within of a comprehensive and consistent growth strategy. One of the facts that struck me in the recent World Development Report 2013 - Jobs, was the very high unemployment rate among university graduates in Tunisia. This rate rose from 14 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2011. I am sure you remember well that the spark of the Arab Spring has been fired on Dec. 17, 2010, the day where Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian university graduate earning his bread as a peddler, immolated him self following the confiscation of his street cart.