Teacher's Guide - The Curriculum Project

3. The United Nations Human Development Index (HDI)Economic Indicators (cont’d)Pre-teach:poverty (noun): being poor.literacy (noun): being able to read and write.life expectancy (noun): the average amount of time that someone can expect to live.to rank (verb): to put in order.development (noun): how advanced a country is.Ask students to read the text about the ‘Human Development Index’. Theyshould write down any words that they don’t know. Elicit these words in turn.Ask if they, or another student, can guess the meaning. If not, give them adictionary to look it up and tell the class, or tell them yourself.PairworkDiscussion1. In pairs, ask students to write down three key points from the text. Theseshould be the things they consider important. Then elicit one key point fromeach pair in turn and write them on the board.2. Elicit a brief discussion about Burma’s economic indicators.Burma’s economic indicators show that the country is in a poor economic state. Here are some morein-depth figures for Burma for 2003 (see the detailed HDI document in the Supplementary Pack).Life Expectancy at birth:60.2 yearsAdult Literacy Rate (15 years and above) 89.7%School Enrolment (primary, secondary & tertiary education): 48%Burma’s HDI of 0.578 means that it ranks as a Medium Developed Country. However, the accuracyof these figures is questionable. See the text below.Accuracy of Economic Indicators for BurmaIt is hard to find accurate information for Burma’s economic indicators. It is likely that theBurmese government only releases figures that give the regime a political advantage.International agencies (such as the UN) find it difficult to gather accurate data in Burmadue to restrictions on their movements and their access to information. In 1987 Burma wasdeclared a Least Developed Country (LDC) by the UN. This meant that some of Burma'sdebts were cancelled, and that it received trade advantages. However, the regime purchasednearly US$2 billion in arms from China during the 1990’s. If the country was so poor, wheredid the military find this money? It may be that Burma’s situation is not as bad as the governmentclaims, but that the regime is using money for military purposes and for the personal benefitof regime leaders, rather than spending on national health and education.DiscussionGroupwork3. The HDI map shows that by far the largest number of Low Developmentcountries are in Africa. Ask the students why they think this is. Issues to discuss:climate, war, political instability, corruption, infrastructure (roads, railways,communications), healthcare, education4. In groups, ask the students to think about the HDI of their own community.The Curriculum Project ECONOMICS: an introduction - Teacher’s Guide46