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Impact Of International Aid Program On Sub Saharan African Countries

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The intertwined nature of poverty and education, as well as the interplay between the two has constantly been raised in the literature and research of development (Arnove1980; Deininger 2000; Don 2001 & Torres 2003), inter alia in search of the way for achieving universal primary education (UPE) in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is also the focus of international cooperation since UPE is one of the major objectives of international development aid (Aiglepierre & Wagner 2013). The year of 2015 is approaching but the issues such as global poverty and education inequality still persist in many developing countries. An inevitable question arises: has the international aid been a contributory factor to those recipient countries in …show more content…

Others such as the World System theory and Dependency theory, see education as an instrument used by the developed/core countries to penetrate western ideology and values into the developing/periphery or semi-periphery countries as part of the process of exploitation, which worsens the condition of poverty so the poor remains poor.

To be specific and explicit, the Modernisation theory emerged in the late 1950s claiming that to improve living standards, leaving poverty and backwardness behind, traditional societies or low-income countries have to learn from and adapt to the values held by the modern western countries (Fagerlind & Saha 1989; Matunhu 2011). The ideas of becoming modern are strongly associated with the promotion of Westernisation or colonisation as well as the development of dependency between rich and poor countries (Don 2001, p. 617-618). If we accept this premise, education was considered by this theory to be endowed with a pivotal role because of its ability to diffuse western values and knowledge. It was considered a great contribution to the economic productivity in the growth process, especially of developing countries (Arnove1980, p.48). Some of the proponents of modernisation theory believe that some ‘unenlightened’ countries have already benefited a lot from learning about the successful western model of

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