Huh, I disagree. As someone from Tunisia, the early focus on education has led a considerable number of people to become wealthy (me included). I still remember

Huh, I disagree. As someone from Tunisia, the early focus on education has led a considerable number of people to become wealthy (me included). I still remember the days (early childhood) where I was helping my father farming and selling food on the street. That life is quite different from where I am today. I attribute this to the solid education I had early on and the particular culture where I grew up (mid-coast). I don't think education alone is enough for the path to richness in a nation. Tunisia is still stuck with an inability to re-innovate and free its economy, and resolve its corruption issues. I don't think centralized government is the answer either (neither is industry as some comments suggested; Tunisia could have jumped directly from an agricultural to an information economy, but so many things went wrong). Maybe it's the Mediterranean? There is hardly any Mediterranean country that had economic success in that same time-frame.