Makini School pupils wash their hands during a past Global Handwashing Day celebrations. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Summary
- A Kenyan child born today is likely to achieve 55 percent of his/her potential in adulthood, an improvement from 52 percent a year ago.
- Newborns all over the world are unable to achieve 100 percent of the potential in adulthood given the inefficiencies and shortfalls in the education, health systems and social support.
- Now in its third year, the Human Capital Index paints a picture of the amount of human capital that a child born today can be expected to deliver as an adult, is as a result of the state of health and education in the country the child lives.
A Kenyan child born today is likely to achieve 55 percent of his/her potential in adulthood, an improvement from 52 percent a year ago.
This is according to the 2020 Human Capital Index (HCI) report released by the World Bank a month ago, ranking Kenya at position 93 out of 174. HCI measures human capital of the next generation. It captures key stages of a child’s trajectory from birth to adulthood.
Newborns all over the world are unable to achieve 100 percent of the potential in adulthood given the inefficiencies and shortfalls in the education, health systems and social support.
Now in its third year, the Human Capital Index paints a picture of the amount of human capital that a child born today can be expected to deliver as an adult, is as a result of the state of health and education in the country the child lives. The index, therefore, gives what a generation’s output will be compared to what it could have been.
Using health, survival and education data, the index combines five indicators which are child survival, school enrolment, quality of learning, healthy growth and adult survival into a single index ranging between 0-1.
The three components are combined by multiplying the coefficient for survival (proportion of children who survive to adult), schooling (number of years spent in school by the time they get to adulthood) and health (height at adulthood) since this has been found to reflect accumulation of shocks to health through childhood and adolescence. According to the research,a one-centimetre increase in adult height raises productivity by 3.4 percent.
The World Bank puts Kenya’s HCI at 0.546, third highest in sub- Saharan Africa region behind Seychelles (0.62) and Mauritius (0.62). The economy loses 45 percent of its human capital due to stunting of the children, lower adult survival rate and incomplete education (less than 14 years of high-quality school by age 18).
The World Bank, during the release of the report lauded efforts made especially by small economies during the hard times created by the Covid-19 pandemic to cushion their citizens. “The outlook for the next generation has been improving in most African countries, efforts are being made to protect these human capital gains against setbacks such as Covid-19 and accelerate progress,” said the World Bank.
A newborn in Kenya today stands a 95.8 percent chance of surviving to his/her fifth birthday. As the pandemic continues to spread, fear of getting infected has led many sick people and those needing medical care such as vaccinations to give health centres a wide berth, threatening gains in the fight against malaria, HIV/Aids, diarrhoeal diseases among others.
Education plays a significant role in improving the quality of labour, globally governments closed schools in a bid reduce the spread of the virus, schools were shut down early in the year. The disruptions in the school calendar have seen to be widening the learnings gaps between children of different backgrounds.
Learners from more poorer backgrounds have suffered the worst during the period as they are unable to access online learning materials with others living within households that lack electricity connection. The situation has been blamed for increased children labour, teenage pregnancies and other vices between children of school going age.
“The widening in learning gaps, employment loss and reduced remittance brought about by the pandemic will be a headache to poor households,” said the World Bank.
“While there is still tremendous uncertainty on the overall impact of the pandemic on human capital, it is clear that both direct and indirect pathways will matter, those who were most vulnerable to begin with are likely to be the worst hit, and many dimensions of inequality are likely to increase,” it added.
A Kenyan undergoes at least 11.6 years of schooling which is a slight improvement from the 10.7 reported a year ago, according to the World Bank the more years spent in school the better in that a student comes out of the education system well improved intellectually.
Survival to adulthood was reported at 77.3 percent, meaning 77 out of 100 newborns will survive to adulthood which is an improvement from 76 percent in 2019.
However as Kenyans fail to realize up to 45 percent of their potential, all sub-Saharan African countries are performing poorly in the index .
Children born in The Central African Republic (CAR) and Chad are likely to realize only 29 percent of their potential. The means they are likely to, lose up to 71 percent of their capital if a child survives to adulthood.
Nigeria, the biggest economy and the most populous country in the continent reported a HCI of 0.36 (position 168/174). A 15 year-old in Nigeria has a 66 percent chance of surviving up to 60 years old.
A South African child (HC1 0.425) will only deliver 42 percent of his or her full potential once he/she grows into an adult. The World Bank reported 29 percent of children under 5 years are stunted, 69 percent survival rate to adulthood and will be in school for only 10.2 years. The nation loses up to 58 percent of its human capital potential.
On the Eastern Africa front, Tanzania was second to Kenya with a 0.389 score followed by Burundi 0.386, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda all tied with 0.38 points.
“The World Bank Group Africa Human Capital Plan identifies game-changers for human capital, including women’s empowerment to accelerate the demographic transition, a focus on fragile settings, increased use of technologies, and smarter investments at scale,”added the World Bank in the report.
Quality education
Ensuring access to a quality education closes early gaps in cognitive and socioeconomic-behavioral skills. By the age of 3, children from low-income families have heard 30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers.
Globally, Singapore had the highest score with an HCI value of 0.88, Hong Kong 0.812, Japan 0.804, Korea 0.798, and Canada at 0.797 make the top 5 list.
As children turn into teenagers, interventions to close these gaps become more expensive. This becomes more and more difficult for developing countries to bridge the gap with the developed countries.
“The benefits of human capital transcend private returns, extending to others and across generations. Deworming one child decreases the chances of other children becoming infected with worms, which in turn sets those children up for better learning and higher wages,”read the report.
The case is similar for all diseases if the health system manages diseases well then the economy will be healthy, wealthy and prosperous.
Countries become richer as more human capital accumulates. Human capital complements physical capital in the production process and is an important input to technological innovation and long-run growth.
The HCI is part of the World Bank’s Programme on nurturing and building human capital by exploring solutions for the ever developing and evolving challenges that face humanity such as resource challenges, adverse population dynamics, governance challenges and fragility, conflict and violence.
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