Universal Basic and Secondary Education
Over the past century, three approaches have been advocated to escape the consequences of widespread poverty, rapid population growth, environmental problems, and social injustices. The bigger pie approach says: use technology to produce more and to alleviate shortages. The fewer forks approach says: make contraception and reproductive health care available to eliminate unwanted fertility and to slow population growth. The better manners approach says: eliminate violence and corruption; improve the operation of markets and government provision of public goods; reduce the unwanted aftereffects of consumption; and achieve greater social and political equity between young and old, male and female, rich and poor. Providing all the world’s children with the equivalent of a high-quality primary and secondary education, whether through formal schooling or by alternative means, could, in principle, support all three of these approaches.