Why is education in general important for development and why has there been a focus on primary education until relatively recently?
In the last 20 years we’ve had a combination of a very powerful human capital view, that if you invest in your own education you’ll get returns in a better job and better income. We’ve also had a very powerful human rights argument that education is a fundamental right, and therefore we need to do something in developing countries about getting children into schooling. Then there was the negative view that higher education was for the wealthy, the elite, and that it was very expensive. So many organizations questioned why you would put money into higher education when primary education was much more important, and for the same amount of money could reach many more people.