Kenya was ranked 139 out of 195 countries in health and education investment for its citizens, a significant drop from position 137 in 1990.
The ranking is according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s (IHME) new human capital survey. However, despite the declining investment, the country placed ahead of other countries including Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia.
Does this mean the country is investing more for the purpose? The state of the two across the counties is debilitating. Sure, there are some places with the appropriate kind of systems all Kenyans should have but in other parts of the Rift Valley and the North Eastern regions of the country, the situation is dire.
The government, by failing to address these urgent issues is ignoring its own peril. Investment in education and health improves the human capital and the GDP. Currently, the world’s economy is rapidly growing and is increasingly depending on technology.
The technology is mandatory for the stimulation of local and national economies and if some sectors of the same economy are left lagging behind, there won’t be any substantial growth.
According to the report though, the education Kenyan workers currently receive is way more than they got in 1990.
The study measured that Kenyans spent about 11 years out of a possible 18 years in 2016. The country rose 16 places since 1990 regarding the years spent in school. Globally, Kenya ranks 111 in the world, but the quality of education in Kenya is wanting.
It might have shown some improvement since two decades ago and outranked other east African countries like Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia but across the world, it still stands at the 157th position in terms of the quality of education.
Meanwhile, Finland ranked the top whereas Turkey had the most notable and significant increase in the human capital between 1990 and 2016.
“Asian countries with notable improvement include China, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. Within Latin America, Brazil stands out for improvement. All these countries have had faster economic growth over this period than peer countries with lower levels of human capital improvement,” stated the report.
Nevertheless, Equatorial Guinea triumphed the sub-Saharan African with the greatest increase in human capital. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East also recorded admirable improvements.
IHME noted that nations failing to invest in health and education risk stagnating their economies not to mention lowering their per capita GDP.
“Measuring and ranking countries by their level of human capital is critical to focus governments’ attention on investing in their own people. This study from IHME is an important contribution to the measurement of human capital across countries and over time,” World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim said.