Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of (the qualification as per the PG2 form), Human Resource Management, Durban, University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2017. / This study evaluated the effect of government expenditure on education attainment in South Africa by assessing the effect of the amount spent by government on education from 1980 to 2014 on human capital development. The study is centred around two objectives: (1) to analyse the effect of government expenditure on education attainment; and (2) to investigate the effect of education attainment on human development. Human capital development was measured using Gross Enrolment Ratio for secondary school, supplied by the South African Reserve Bank. Data on government expenditure on human capital was acquired from the Treasury database. The study draws from the human capital theoretical framework in explaining the effect of education expenditure on human capital development. The findings of the study showed that there is a positive relationship between human capital development and government expenditure. These findings showed a strong relationship between government expenditure and gross enrolment ratio at 99 % confidence interval (p< 0,0001). The theory of human capital is thus confirmed with these findings. / M

Research of the relationship between human capital and economic growth has been significantly developing since 1960s'. This thesis aims to contribute to the topic of human capital, map its importance in the theoretical and empirical economics and examine the influence on macroeconomic growth. In most of the countries human capital and education are budgeted mainly from the public resources thus is the human capital theory important for the public sector as well. First part of the thesis presents the main growth models and its evolution concerning also the human capital. In the second part there is a summary of the most important empirical literature. In the third part I present and comment the results of the empirical analyses. The benchmark data panel covers 92 countries within years 1960-2005. The method of analyses is panel data regression. The primary finding of the thesis is confirmation of the positive influence that human capital has on the economic growth. Third part also tests the most adequate proxy of the human capital. The quality of the human capital as well as the link between quantity and quality are also reflected in the regression analyses.