Abstract.This article questions the applicability of international standards on children’s work to such situations as are found in South Africa. Differing contexts affect ideas of what is appropriate for children. Although South Africa has a developed economy and techno-logy and aspires to full participation in the developed world, poverty remains a problem, as does quality and accessibility of schooling. These factors, together with different cultural views on children and growing up, affect experiences of childhood and of school, making them very different from the experiences of young people in the developed world. Although few children in South Africa are in regular paid employment, those undertaking part-time paid work often see this as a positive feature in their lives, while many find that unpaid work in the home can be a problem. Such children doing useful part-time paid work, as well as those doing excessive work in their homes, need protection and support, yet escape attention in international discourse on abolishing ‘child labour.’

Improving schools is frequently high on the policy agenda of both developed and developing countries. The nature of the policy focus, however, differs across countries with some emphasizing increasing school attainment and others focusing on quality concerns. Until recently little evidence was very useful in helping decision makers to formulate appropriate schooling policies. In the last decade, however, there has been a dramatic increase in useful information about the role of human capital in development and about the ways in which governments can promote human capital formation. This paper reviews evidence on the economic impacts of human capital investment with an eye to where investment decisions might be made. While the evidence on actual impacts is quite clear, the evidence on how best to make the investments is less clear. Specifically, recent research underscores the prime importance of educational quality, as measured by cognitive achievement, and the much lower importance of pure school attainment. This research spans both developed and developing nations. On the other hand, on the key question is how cognitive achievement

Are early leavers from the education system irrational or ill informed? They might be, but this approach shows that with underperforming education sectors – typical in developing countries – early dropout may be perfectly rational and well informed, even in the absence of liquidity constraints. This paper provides an integer approach to guide intervention in developing countries, though there are no clear-cut policies. Long-term measures should be aimed at improving the productivity of the activity, for instance by improving teaching processes, qualification of human resources and organization of schools. Also, less costly measures targeting subjective factors like motivation might be as effective.