Family, Education and Social Policy

Family, Education and Social Policy

For many, education is the key. Amartya Sen argued that education and literacy improves the way in which democracy and public policy function, education (particularly of women) is closely linked to child health and education, fertility and the spread of many technologies such as higher yielding seed types in agriculture. Yes, education remains an intensely debated subject the world over. In India, while the University sector expands rapidly, the primary sector remains chronically underfunded with teaching staff typically absent from the classroom. In many countries, education is criticised for encouraging children to remember facts rather than creative and independent thinking that may lead to more national innovative and economic dynamism in later years. in Brazil the delivery of some social welfare policies has been made conditional on children attending school. The structure of the family remains crucial to wider social policy; is household income spent on health care or alcohol, are children sent to school to learn or factories to work? The state is also important in mobilising tax revenue and savings to invest, in infrastructure or hospitals, in enforcing children's attendance at school and in promoting national immunisation campaigns.