In areas such as education, health care and transport, there is often market failure – the free market doesn’t provide sufficient levels of education. A key factor in improving economic development is to increase levels of literacy and numeracy. Without basic levels of education and training, it is very difficult for economy to develop into higher value added industries.
Evidence on returns from investing in education are mixed. Often investment takes a long time to feed through into directly higher rates of economic growth. pdf World Bank But, on its literacy is an aim of development.