Education and economic growth in Sub-Saharan African Countries: Does governance quality Matter?

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between education, governance and economic growth in 28 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2002 to 2018. The study first examines the effect of education on economic growth and, thereafter, examines the modulating effect of governance quality on the nexus between education and economic growth. Two proxies of education, namely primary and secondary education, and five proxies of governance quality, namely a) corruption control, b) government effectiveness, c) regulations, d) rule of law, and e) voice and accountability, have been used to examine this linkage. Using the GMM techniques, it was found that the effect of education on economic growth is weak at best. Although secondary education has an unconditional positive effect on economic growth in one of the five specifications of governance quality (i.e., regulatory quality), primary education has no impact whatsoever on economic growth in all the specifications. The study also found that, although governance quality spurs economic growth in most of the primary and secondary education specifications, it interacts with secondary education to foster growth in only one of the five specifications (i.e., regulatory quality). However, when considering primary education specifications, governance does not interact with education to spur economic growth in any of the five specifications. These findings, though contrary to some of the previous studies and the global trend, are not surprising given the primary and secondary education landscape in some SSA countries. According to UNESCO, SSA has the highest rates of education exclusion in the world.