INVISIBLE CHILDREN: THE ROLE OF FOREIGN AID IN EDUCATIONAL MOBILITY AMONGST THE WORLD’S POOR

Abstract

Foreign aid has traditionally focused on the goal of universal primary education as stipulated in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, this focus often neglects the importance of educational mobility. In this Honours Thesis, I demonstrate that despite its successes, Official Development Assistance (ODA) exerts a negative effect on upward mobility in education amongst Lower-Income Countries (LICs). Using data from the World Bank’s Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility (GDIM) and International Debt Statistics (IDS) database, I constructed a panel model that compared variations in ODA, as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI), with variations in rates of upward educational mobility across 32 LICs and 3 population cohorts. The results indicate that a 0.775% increase in ODA (as a percentage of GNI) is associated with a 1% decrease in the rate of upward educational mobility and this finding is significant at the 0.01 level. Additionally, a 1% decrease in upward educational mobility was observed to be the result of a 0.662% and 0.757% increase in ODA/GNI for males and females respectively (p < 0.01) which is indicative of a lack of gender equity in the mobility outcomes of foreign aid. Overall, I conclude that the foreign aid regime’s focus on universal primary education, insistence on decentralised decision making and inability to correct gender inequities impedes the ability of recipient states’ educational policymakers to facilitate students’ progression and unless changes are made, this approach will continue to depress mobility outcomes amongst LICs.