Economic growth and the international trade in educational reform

Summary The decline in foreign assistance for eduacation can be considered a tragedy. On the other hand, the elevation of education in domestic debate and the increase in trade of professional ideas on educational reform might be considered a benefit. The adjustment to these new functions on the part of development assistance agencies and international agencies familiar with the traditional rationales for educational investment will be difficult, however, in the end, their successful adjustment will be good for the field of education. Original language: English Stephen P. Heyneman (United States of America) Lead Education Specialist serving countries in the Europe and Central Asia region of the World Bank. After teaching and research in Africa, he completed a doctorate degree at the University of Chicago. He has been president of the Comparative and International Education Society, a member of the board on International Comparative Studies in Education of the United States National Academy of Sciences, and a lecturer at American University and the University of Maryland. On behalf of the World Bank, he has advised senior educational officials in many different countries and other international institutions on educational programmes.     

Education in developing countries: the view from Mount Olympus

In a recent issue ofProspects we published a review of the World Bank's recent publication,Education Sector Working Paper. This publication represents a major policy statement by the Bank on the subject of education and significant (not to say radical) departure from previous policies. It is a document all the more important in view of the enormous funding power of the World Bank and the undeniable influence of its policies on national governments and even on international organizations. TheEducation Sector Working Paper, which has been generally welcomed in international circles, is certainly not without its critics both in the developing countries and in the industrialized world. We feel that at a time when there is a push for examining educational policies and concepts on an international level, we can contribute to the debate by publishing some criticism and rejoinder centring around the World Bank publication, much as we did in 1973 and 1974 on the subject ofLearning to Be, the report of the International Commission on the Development of Education. In this issue, therefore, we open the discussion with an article by Peter Williams, originally written for a one-day review meeting to consider the World Bank publication, held on 19 May 1975, at the University of London Institute of Education, and which he revised forProspects. The institute hopes to publish a report of its meeting, together with the papers, before the end of this year. Peter Williams' critique seems to us to be particularly interesting because it is based on the author's disagreement with the prevailing pessimism in the world, reflected by the World Bank, on the state of education in the developing nations. As always, our readers are warmly invited to contribute their reactions in any form they choose.     

Academic achievement,pupil participation and integration of group work skills in secondary school classrooms in Trinidad and Barbados

Studies have shown a positive relationship between a rise in schooling levels and economic production [World Bank, 2005. A Time to Choose: Caribbean Development in the 21st Century. World Bank, Washington, DC; Jules, V., Panneflek, A., 2000. EFA in the Caribbean: Assessment 2000, Sub-Regional Report, vol. 2, The State of Education in the Caribbean in the 1990s. UNESCO, Kingston, Jamaica; Haddad, W.D., 1990. Education and Development; Evidence for New Priorities. World Bank Discussion Paper 95. The World Bank, Washington, DC; McClelland, D., 1969. Does Education Accelerate Economic Growth. In: Eckstein, M.A., Noah, H.J. (Eds.), Scientific Investigations in Comparative Education. Macmillan, London], but this link may be limited in systems of education where traditional pedagogic methods have been dominant (such as the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Barbados where underachievement is also associated with lack of participation and low levels of social inclusion skills by teachers: World Bank, 1992. Access, Quality and Efficiency in Caribbean Education: a Regional Study. World Bank, Washington, DC; Kutnick, P., Jules, V., Layne, A., 1997. Gender and School Achievement in the Caribbean. Department for International Development, London). Into traditional classroom contexts in Trinidad and Barbados, a new social pedagogic method was introduced by teachers and changes in attainment and motivation of pupils and attitudes of teachers were assessed over two terms in secondary schools.     

Beyond Plumbing and Prevention: feminist approaches to sex education

This article offers a feminist critique of existing sex education policies and programmes in Canada, as well as examining common right‐wing arguments against more progressive approaches. Two major forces shaping adolescent girls’ developing sexuality—male sexual violence and compulsory heterosexuality—are discussed, and recent initiatives in Ontario to introduce these issues into sex education programmes evaluated. Toronto Board of Education's new policy on sexual orientation and the Ontario Ministry of Education AIDS Education Curriculum are assessed and strategies for anti‐sexist, anti‐heterosexist sex education developed.     

Investigation and Discussion on the Problem of Primary and Secondary School Dropouts in Poor Areas

China's compulsory nine-year education has achieved great success. But the phenomenon of rural students dropping out of school can still be seen in many places, and is particularly acute in poor areas. What has led to this phenomenon? With this question in mind, the investigative unit of the World Bank Monetary Fund project—"Study and Countermeasures for the Problem of Primary and Secondary School Students in Poor Areas Repeating and Dropping Out"—went to a poor area of Jiangxi province to carry out the investigation.     

Twenty years of World Bank support for basic education

Chief of the Education and Employment Division in the World Bank's Population and Human Resources Department. Prior to joining the Bank, he worked for UNESCO and UNICEF in Africa. He has published extensively on educational planning and management; he is co-author, with Marlaine Lockheed, of Improving Primary Education in Developing Countries: A Review of Policy Options.     

Globalisation of learning-The role of the universities in the south: With a special look at sub-Saharan Africa

The first part of the paper discusses the uneven distribution of resources to higher education between the North and South. It then takes up the attitude of the World Bank towards university education in the South and does this by going through several World Bank publications and dwells on the 1994 publication called ‘Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience’. It also discusses the likely effects for the university sector in the South, especially in Africa, of the Jomtien conference on ‘education for all’. The linkage phenomenon between universities in the North and the South is discussed. The following question is raised: Is it at all possible to establish a North South cooperation in the university sector of an empowering kind? Negative as well as positive examples are given. The link that is really missing is then discussed. This is the link between the elites in the country and the people, the link between indigenous knowledge and the imported academic knowledge. This paper argues for a transformation of the universities of the South to include local knowledge. The most common problems of the South can only be understood by analyzing local experiences. A plea is being made for discussing indigenous education. Such a discussion compels us to come to terms with the situation in which even the social construction of a people's reality is and has been constantly defined elsewhere. For Africa to find her way out of the abyss in which she finds herself an alternative national development model is needed. This model is not likely to be found unless the African universities are strengthened and transformed. The transformation would have to do with a strengthening of indigenous research based on local experience.     

Privatisation,Domestic Marketisation and International Commercialisation of Higher Education: vulnerabilities and opportunities for Chile and Romania within the framework of WTO/GATS

This chapter explores the processes of privatisation of higher education in Chile (after 1981) and Romania (after 1989), focusing on the emergence of private institutions, the expansion in enrolments in these institutions, and the relative increase in private sources of funding for the post‐secondary sub‐sector. Attention is also given to related trends in higher education in these two countries: domestic marketisation (a strengthening of an orientation toward selling programmes/commodities to students/consumers within the country) and international commercialisation (an expansion of initiatives by domestic and foreign institutions to provide distance education, study abroad/exchange, and foreign site‐based degree programmes). Of importance to an understanding of globalisation, these two societies, which at the time exhibited similar economic systems but had different political systems and were situated in different regional contexts, experienced remarkably similar processes of and outcomes from privatisation, marketisation, and commercialisation. In both cases these processes were promoted by ‘internal’ political actors but also shaped by ‘external’ forces, notably the World Bank's higher education policy recommendations and the conditionalities included in the stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes ‘negotiated’, respectively, with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in order to obtain loans. As a result of these processes—occurring prior to and during the emergence of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a component of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—higher education institutions in both Chile and Romania are much more vulnerable to foreign influence/domination, although they also have somewhat greater opportunities to broaden their role in the global ‘business’ of higher education.     

World Bank policy on education: A personal account

Based on the author's over two decades of association with the World Bank, this paper reviews the institution's policies and practice on education. It describes why education policy, as revealed by operations, shifted dramatically since the early Bank projects on education and identifies the reasons for such a shift. The paper argues that the multi-agency Education for All initiative is unrealistic and unlikely to be reached in this century. Also, the paper discusses the Bank's lack of concrete policies and priorities, especially regarding the trade-off between primary and tertiary education.     

Higher education in the Third World: status symbol or instrument for development?

Southern countries have invested rather heavily in higher education. Yet, their development is severely hampered by problems originating from both national policy conditions and institutional weaknesses. This paper presents an analysis of these problems through a critical analysis of the World Bank Report onEducation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization and Expansion. The paper further highlights the results of a recently published comparative study of higher agricultural education institutions in ten countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. By carefully examining the concrete mandates, expectations and actual possibilities of higher education institutions, this paper tries to explore the academic and societal frontiers of higher education in the South. The paper ends by suggesting ways to improve higher education in the South by using the instrument of South-North university co-operation.     

‘Come on girls,let's go to school’: an effort towards gender educational equity in Turkey

In many developing countries, women's education has been a highly prominent issue which is not adequately addressed in their education policies. The participation of female populations in education in most of the developing regions of the world has been much lower than the participation of their male counterparts [UNICEF. 2005a. “Report Card on Gender Parity and Primary Education.” www.unicef.org/turkey]. As a developing country, Turkey engaged in fairly vigorous and determined attempts to address the issues regarding women's education [Aydagül, B. 2008. “No Shared Vision for Achieving Education for All: Turkey at Risk.” Prospects 38 (3): 401–407] owing to the support, incentives, and pressure of the international organisations through various conventions in the last decade. The current paper scrutinises one of these attempts, namely, the campaign called ‘Come on girls, let's go to school’ which was initiated by the Ministry of National Education with the support of United Nations Children's Fund and World Bank, and considerably contributed to the increases in girls' enrolment and attendance rates in rural areas and southeast regions of Turkey. This paper utilises the social equity criteria as its conceptual framework drawing from Levin [1978. “The Dilemma of Comprehensive Secondary School Reforms in Western Europe.” Comparative Education Review 22 (3): 434–451] and Stromquist [2011. Educational Equity [Lecture Notes]. College Park: University of Maryland]. The analysis yields that the girls' education campaign in Turkey addresses to varying extents the criteria of accessibility, probability of enrolment, probability of participation, and length of participation, whereas it fails to meet the standard of educational results.     

Collaboration in open and distance learning: The realities of policy implementation in the Africa region

Abstract

In this article the Sub-Saharan Africa region's attempt to implement open and distance learning collaboration programmes, in line with the ideals of the World Declaration on Education for All (WDEFA), are discussed. The discussion is based on an analysis of the WDEFA policy; participation in, minutes and reports of the Multi-Channel Learning Base (MCLB) initiative; and a brief review of the literature on policy and ODL collaboration. The conclusions drawn from this analysis are that: the WDEFA was a useful policy on international collaboration for meeting basic learning needs; the MCLB initiative, though laudable in having shared in three regional activities of ODL experience in Sub-Saharan Africa and having developed a regional ODL programme of action, was unsuccessful in implementing collaborative programmes in the region. The reasons for the MCLB's failure relate to unrealistic timeframes, lack of resources, preference for national rather than international programmes, and the proposed location of the MCLB.     

Student loans in developing countries: feasibility,experience and prospects for reform

Student loan schemes now exist in more than fifty countries, but many are not working well and critics question whether student loans are feasible in developing countries. This special issue of Higher Education compares experience of student loans and other forms of student support in selected Asian and African countries and examines the prospects for reform of student loan programmes in order to improve their effectiveness and reduce default. This introduction to the volume describes current research on student loans by the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and the World Bank, and draws on the conclusions of a series of Educational Forums on student loans organised by IIEP, to conclude that student loans are feasible, and can promote wider cost-sharing and help to generate additional resources for higher education, but only if loan programmes are well designed and efficiently managed. The purpose of this introduciton and the subsequent articles in the special issue is to suggest some ways of improving performance of student loans in developing countries, drawing on lessons from experience in Asia and English-speaking Africa.     

Agent of global markets or agent of the poor? The World Bank’s education sector strategy paper

This article contrasts the official, largely silent, role of the World Bank as an agent of global markets with its professed role as agent of the poor. The failure to make explicit its role as global market advocate creates a policy environment that can be destructive of both global markets and the long-term survival of the world’s poor. The article examines the World Bank’s Education Sector Strategy in this light. The article begins by outlining the institutional, policy and education frameworks that emerge from the conflicts of the World Bank’s dual role in markets and poverty. It then shows that the implementation and outcome analyses in The Strategy grow out of these frameworks and are, therefore, limited in scope and effectiveness. An approach that explicitly acknowledges the market roles of the World Bank would have led to a more effective policy document.     

Establish a High-Efficiency System of Higher Education Investment

The current director of the Institute of Higher Education of Peking University is a forty-three-year-old professor, Min Weifang. After receiving a double masters degree in studies in higher education and organizational management, Professor Min was sent abroad by the state and received a doctoral degree from Stanford University in educational management and policy making. He then further undertook postdoctoral studies in the areas of educational economics and educational finance. After returning to China, he has been invited to undertake research work in the headquarters of the World Bank in the areas of educational investment and educational effectiveness. He is a national-level young expert who has made outstanding contributions in his fields of endeavor. At the moment, in addition to serving as an assistant to the president of Peking University, as the director of the Institute of Higher Education at Peking University, and as a faculty adviser to doctoral students, he also serves on the editorial board of the international journal Higher Education and holds the positions of Higher Education Investment Consultant for the World Bank and Group Leader of the Chinese Experts Group for the World Bank's loan program to educational development projects in the impoverished provinces and regions in China.     

Learning from all? The World Bank,aid agencies and the construction of hegemony in education for development

This paper explores the nature and quality of the participation that characterises the Bank's consultations with external actors and examines the extent to which the Bank is responsive to such feedback when it comes to defining its policy preferences and strategies in the education domain. It draws on a case study of the participatory process that was organised around the definition of the last World Bank Education Strategy (WBES2020) and focuses on the participation of three European aid agencies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Department for International Development of the UK. This paper acknowledges that a significant effort was made to promote the inclusiveness and transparency of the participatory process, yet it concludes that the conditions for promoting quality participation and substantive policy change were not provided. Furthermore, the way international aid agencies produce and use knowledge limits their role and influence in the context of the Bank's consultations. Hence, by not contesting the Bank's policy ideas substantially, the agencies contribute inadvertently to reproducing the Bank's predominance in the education for development field.     

The national politics of educational advocacy in the context of global governance: international funding and support for civil society engagement in Cambodia

This paper examines the Civil Society Education Fund’s (CSEF) impact on the non-governmental organisation education partnership (NEP) in Cambodia. With financial backing from the World Bank and the Fast Track Initiative, the CSEF is an initiative that is managed internationally by the Global Campaign for Education. Its goal is to help national networks of non-governmental organizations participate in education decision-making and to serve as a watchdog for progress related to internationally agreed upon goals. Through the CSEF, the deployment of various strategies, and other external factors, the NEP was able to able to achieve recognition, legitimacy and influence at the national level. However, the NEP has had to balance working with the state and working for the state. This case study highlights strategies used by civil society actors to engage state actors, the efficacy of international support, and the conflicts inherent in both.     

Rural primary school teachers as change agents in the third world: Three case studies

During the past two decades considerable interest has been shown in the use of primary school teachers as change agents — rural animateurs — in the rural areas of the Third World. The concept is not new. Its origins certainly go back to British colonial administration in Africa, but it has been increasingly advocated as a solution to the pressing problems of rural underdevelopment, illiteracy and urban migration.This paper examines the theoretical basis of the concept both historically and in more recent writings; examines three national case studies, from Thailand, Iran and Cameroon; and from these seeks to draw general propositions that might have a wider validity.     

Making educational policy under influence of external assistance and national politics — a comparative analysis of the education sector policy documents of Ethiopia,Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia

The article analyses the context and content of current national education sector policy documents from four African countries (Ethiopia, 1994; Mozambique, 1995; Namibia, 1993; Zambia, 1996). These documents are examined in relation to the educational policy agenda presented in World Bank publications and in the documents of the Jomtien Education for All conference. In all four cases a considerable degree of agreement is found between the national documents and the donor agenda, particularly in the countries undergoing structural adjustment programmes. The analysis also suggests that this influence is moderated by multi-party politics, and by remnants of previous socialist ideology.     

Educators' perceptions of continuing professional development for teachers in South Africa: A qualitative study

Abstract

The effectiveness of educational reform initiatives depends on the quality of teachers. Professional development (PD) of teachers has therefore become a major focal point of school improvement initiatives. The National Policy Framework for Teacher Education and Development (2007) attempts to address the need for suitably qualified teachers in South Africa. The study discussed in this article was qualitative within purposefully selected schools. Its aim was to explain educators' perceptions of continuing professional development in the light of the national policy. The following major findings emerged from the data analysis: (1) overall view of PD in the education system, (2) experience of types of PD programmes, and (3) impact of PD programmes on schools.