This systematic review suggests the widely held belief that investing in education
and skills promotes economic growth in LICs is correct in general. It also identifies
many gaps in the research field which, if filled, would enable a more effective
policy response by international donors and governments in LICs. The most
important issue is that of the education and skills measurements used. These are
often chosen by academics in terms of data availability rather than usefulness as a
measure for policy intervention. The human capital measures used tend to be
measures of the inputs into the education process, for example enrolment rates as
a measure of engagement, and educational expenditure as a measure of costs,
rather than measures of learning. Therefore a discussion between academics and
policy-makers as to what they mean by education and skills and how best to
measure these may be a fruitful line of enquiry in terms of making the academic
literature in this field more useful to policy-makers.