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The histories of nations show that modern education
is the basic instrument for the political, social,
and economic development of their respective people.
All governments in the world invest heavily in
education, recognizing that it is the bridge that
guarantees the continuation of civilized
generations. There could not be a different story
for the Ethiopian government. The education sector
is one of the most key agendas of the government,
with its own objectives and strategies.
From the perspective of the overall return to the
development of the nation, researches indicate that
investment in primary education has more returns
than the higher levels of education .This is the
rationale, among other things, behind the
government’s free primary education provision.
Nevertheless, a huge stock of knowledge, which is a
very essential input in the overall matrix of
development, is mainly the product of investment in
higher education. When countries face political,
social and economic problems, great minds from
multi- disciplinary fields analyze the problems and
suggest their own panacea. Unlike any other traded
commodities, where countries usually apply the
comparative advantage theory by which they produce
commodities at which they are in relative advantage
from other countries, they must produce all kinds of
knowledge. And all kinds of knowledge should be
applied to all kinds of ills, namely the economy or
others.
This is exactly what the economy is starved of,
among other things, in Ethiopia today. The economic
analysis, theories and solutions to economic
problems that have dominated the economy pages of
newspapers and other media alike are devoid of the
insights and approaches of other disciplines. The
problems of the economy could have been better
explained and better solutions could have been
gained had representatives of other disciplines
collaborated to give new insights into the analysis
of, and solutions to economic problems.
Consider inflation. The Ethiopian economy is plagued
with unprecedented inflation, probably the highest
in the history of the Ethiopian economy as the
government claims, or as the IMF confirms, for that
matter. In the mean time, the media in general have
been preoccupied with soliciting analysis from
economists who have little understanding of the
consequential impact on the economy of other factors
which are beyond the realm of economics and which
the inquisitive minds from other disciplines could
better explain through their own analytical methods.
The unfortunate reader is therefore unable to read
other minds from other disciplines which seem to
think that they have no business analyzing the
economy, or if I am wrong in this speculation, I
would attribute it to the lack of a probing mind,
with due courtesy. To put it bluntly, the lacking
element is a comprehensive analysis which is far
from the demand-supply analysis that dominates the
playing field. And a comprehensive analysis can only
be found with a coordinated collaboration of various
disciplines where minds other than the economists
are represented.
Take, for instance, the relation between the
existing inflation rate and the prevailing interest
rate, “the economist” Prime Minister was greatly
stunned during his parliamentary presentation last
time to see savings increase in a very unusual
manner in spite of the double digit negative real
interest rate. Any other economist can not help but
be puzzled too by this phenomenon. Thus, it is at
this point of time that representatives from other
disciplines should have had some thing to say. The
spending and saving behaviour of people in general,
and individuals in particular, which often
demonstrates itself in contradiction to accepted
rules of economics, do not mainly fall under the
domain of economics. It is rather the prerogative of
other disciplines. The addition into the approaches
to economics by sociologists who study about
society’s culture, beliefs and attitudes and
psychologists who study about individual behaviour,
would undoubtedly enhance the predictions in the
science of economics, which in turn will help
policy makers to make the right, if not perfect
judgments.
The legal environment in which businesses operate
has the chance to potentially be damaging or
supportive to the economy. Therefore, an inquisitive
mind from the art of law which sees the economy from
this point of view is very essential; hence the
active presence of the voice of lawyers is helpful
to the economy. And this is true in other
disciplines too the basic idea in general being that
the sharing of ideas on economic issues by various
disciplines is essential n order to enhance the
predictions of the science of economics which most
of the time assumes some basic factors to be
constant and which, as a result, has been called a
“dismal science”. Therefore, the panacea for the
economic woes should not necessarily come from
economists.
However, it can never mean that since economists do
not usually come up with correct indictments, other
disciplines may totally improve this reality. What
is very important to remember is the old adage “a
problem halved is a problem solved.”
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