Education is an essential tool for achieving sustainability. People around the world recognize that current economic development trends are not sustainable and that public awareness, education and training are the key to moving society toward sustainability. Education is a means of social mobility that allows the underprivileged to attain a higher social status. According to theorist Gills et al (1996) education and the national income as highly rated with large sums of money being spent on acquiring education.
The investment component in education is apparent in both an individual and societal level. Individuals invest in education with the nation and expectation that in the future, this investment would yield gains in the form of employment opportunities with increased earnings that was subsequent to their studies with the expectation of having a higher standard of living than their less educated peers.
At a societal level, investment component leaves a high benefit with incomes. Education increases an individual’s earning potential but also produces a ripple effect throughout the economy by way of a series of positive externalities. Meier defined investment in the present to generate benefits in the future and yields increased earnings to the educated person for the labour supplied in the present. The external benefits of education stems with higher income with more likely productive citizens who may pay more in taxes than they collect in government benefits.
Investment for education have planners and policy makers with two approaches; manpower planning that surveys to determine skill and training shortages in the workplace that projects the trends of overall economic growth or growth of the GDP.
The Caribbean has invested strongly in education over the past years, and our society and economies are benefiting today from this investment. Enrolment has increased spectacularly in primary and secondary education. Investment in tertiary education has also...