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The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations. According therefore as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries and conveniences for which it has occasion. (Adam Smith, 1776, Book One). The policy community has for some time recognized that human capital – what workers know and can put to productive use – plays an important role in the social and economic development of nations (Becker, 1964; Schultz, 1963). As noted in the quote above Adam Smith, author and one of the world's first economists, was among the first to comment on the importance of human capital to the wealth of nations. More recently John Kenneth Galbraith, a noted Canadian-born economist, identified literacy as a key aspect of human capital and a central pillar of economic development: "People are the common denominator of progress. So…no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills and the other familiar furniture of economic development…But we are coming to realize…that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first." (Galbraith, 1958) [...]
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