Over ten years, a country’s enrolment rate and teacher-pupil ratio both improve, but tests show that students learn very little. What does this case show?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Such measures may not reflect the quality of education, so a causal link to growth is hard to prove.
Enrolment and the teacher-pupil ratio count how much schooling there is, not how good it is. With such measures, it is hard to prove that more human capital causes growth.
Option (1) The rise in human capital in this country will have raised its per capita real income. — Incorrect. Human capital measures in developing countries have grown fast, but per capita real income has not grown as fast. A rise in these measures does not have to raise income.
Option (2) Such measures may not reflect the quality of education, so a causal link to growth is hard to prove. — Correct. Students learn very little even though the measures improve. So these figures miss the quality of education.
Option (3) Higher income in this country must have caused its better schooling figures. — Incorrect. Causality may run either way, but nothing in this case shows that higher income caused the better figures. The case is about what the figures fail to measure.
Option (4) A better teacher-pupil ratio directly measures how much students learn. — Incorrect. The teacher-pupil ratio counts teachers per student. It does not show how much students learn, as this very case shows.
NCERT (2026-27): “4.3 Sources of Human Capital Empirical evidence to prove that increase in human capital causes economic growth is rather nebulous. This may be because of measurement problems. For example, education measured in terms of years of schooling, teacher-pupil ratio and enrolment rates may not reflect the quality of education; health services measured in monetary terms, life expectancy and mortality rates may not reflect the true health status of the people in a country. Using the indicators mentioned above, an analysis of improvement in education and health sectors and growth in real per capita income in both developing and developed countries shows that there is convergence in the measures of human capital but no sign of convergence of per capita real income. In other words, the human capital growth in developing countries has been faster but the growth of per capita real income has not been that fast.” |