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When education alone is not enough: rethinking the road to development
Imagine two countries starting from nearly the same place. Same poverty levels, similar school systems, comparable ambitions. Fifty years later, one has joined the ranks of the world’s most innovative economies. The other is still waiting for a breakthrough that never quite arrives. What made the difference? According to Mexican economist Leonardo Lomelí Vanegas, rector of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), the answer is not simply how much a country spends on education, but whether that investment is part of a broader, deliberate vision for society.
Education can transform societies, but only when it goes hand in hand with economic opportunity, democratic participation, and a long-term vision for change.
The power and limits of a classroom
Rector Lomeli started his lecture with a poignant analysis; every year, millions of children go to school with the hope that knowledge will open doors. For policymakers and development experts, this hope has long been backed by evidence: more educated populations tend to be healthier, more productive, and better equipped to participate in democracy. But he argues that this picture is incomplete, and that ignoring its missing pieces can be costly.
Lomelí Vanegas draws on the work of one of the 20th century’s most original thinkers to make his case. Indeed, Albert Hirschman, intellectual adventurer who spent decades questioning the dominant assumptions of his field, believed that development does not follow a single, predictable path. Instead, it branches, loops back on itself, and throws up unexpected obstacles. The same, Lomelí Vanegas argues, is true of the relationship between education and development.
Education is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one, to generate sustained development,” he said during the lecture. “If the right conditions are not created for the economy to employ a more qualified workforce, there may be a waste of human capital that translates into individual frustration and social unrest.
Two countries, two paths
To illustrate this, Lomelí Vanegas turned to a striking historical comparison: Mexico and South Korea.
In 1950, Mexico had better economic indicators than South Korea by virtually every measure, higher GDP per capita, more public investment in education, stronger infrastructure. South Korea was recovering from the devastation of the Korean War. Yet by the mid-1980s, South Korea had overtaken Mexico. Today, the gap continues to widen.
The difference, Lomelí Vanegas argues, was not simply the amount spent on education, but the strategic logic behind it. South Korea systematically linked its investment in universities and research to industrial policy, training engineers, scientists, and technicians to fuel specific sectors of its growing economy. By the 1990s, public and private spending on education and research combined reached between 6 and 8% of GDP, closely tied to global technology firms and national industrial conglomerates.
Mexico, by contrast, expanded its education system primarily in response to social and political pressures, broadening coverage in primary schools, then opening universities in part to contain student unrest after the repression of 1968. Spending on research and development remained weak. The links between universities and productive sectors were fragile and occasional.
The result: South Korea built a highly skilled workforce woven into its most dynamic industries. Mexico produced large numbers of graduates who struggled to find work that matched their qualifications, fueling frustration, inequality, and a persistent “middle-income trap” that its economy has never fully escaped.
When expectations outrun opportunities
This mismatch between educational attainment and economic opportunity is not just a technical problem. It has deep political consequences, consequences that Hirschman anticipated decades ago.
In one of his most influential essays, Hirschman described what happens when people see others improving their lives and expect their turn to come, only to wait indefinitely. That waiting, he argued, eventually gives way to resentment. When education raises aspirations that the economy cannot fulfil, social tension follows.
The rector sees this dynamic playing out today, not just in developing countries, but across much of the world. He notes that for the first time in many decades, current generations cannot be certain they will live better than their parents or grandparents. The promise of the post-Cold War era, that globalisation would bring rising living standards for all, has collided with the reality of growing inequality, precarious work, and environmental crisis.
We are living a genuine crisis of expectations,” he said. “A crisis that contrasts sharply with the optimism that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This crisis of expectations, he argues, is fertile ground for populism. When democratic institutions fail to channel people’s voices or deliver tangible improvements in their lives, citizens may abandon them, through disengagement, emigration, or by turning to leaders who offer simple answers to complex problems. Hirschman’s framework of “exit, voice, and loyalty“, originally developed to explain how people respond to failing organizations, becomes, in Lomelí Vanegas’s reading, a map of the current political moment.
Education for democracy, not just for work
The solution, then, is not simply to spend more on schools. It is to think more ambitiously about what education is for.
Lomelí Vanegas calls for an education system capable of keeping pace with a world in which knowledge evolves rapidly, one that teaches young people not only how to work, but how to live together, think critically, and participate meaningfully in public life. This vision echoes the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s argument that education is not merely a tool for economic productivity, but a means of expanding human freedom and capability.
At the same time, investment in education must be matched by investment in the economic structures that can absorb and reward educated citizens. Without that, the circle cannot close.
Only by ensuring that development rises to meet the expectations of a more educated population,” Lomelí Vanegas concluded, “can we keep at bay the spectre of the social frustration that opens the door to populism, with all the risks that this implies.
Conclusion
The rectors’ Albert Hirschman Lecture is a reminder that building fairer societies requires more than classrooms, it demands the political will to connect education with opportunity, democracy, and hope.
READ MORE: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/albert-hirschman-lecture-leonardo-lomeli-vanegas-1?hub=701
