Interrogating an omission: the absence of a rights-based approach to education in World Bank policy discourse

This study provides a discursive analysis of World Bank policy documents in order to reveal the stark omission of a rights-based approach to education, while highlighting instead the support of an economic-instrumentalist approach. Plausible explanations are provided to shed light on this exclusion, including the feasibility critique of education as a right, and the Bank's limited institutional mandate. However, the rationales are presented as unsound and unacceptable justifications for the omission. By drawing on Amartya Sen's theoretical work on human rights and development policy frameworks, this study concludes by arguing for the Bank to integrate into their mandate a conception of education as a human right.     

Education as a global public good: the applicability and implications of a framework

This paper addresses a growing literature on global public goods theory, in particular the use of this framework to promote the equitable provision of goods and social services, such as basic education, on an international scale. Due to a lack of research into this theory’s applicability to education, the author aims to discern how such a framework might be applied, and its possible policy implications, focusing on universal access initiatives and the debate on private provision of schooling. The paper further questions the appropriateness of using global public goods theory given certain critiques.     

Multi-stakeholder aid to education: power in the context of partnership

This study examines power asymmetries within the largest multi-stakeholder agency in the education sector: the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Drawing from data collected through key informant interviews and document analyses, this research asks if the establishment of the GPE has altered power arrangements in educational aid. The study finds that in spite of efforts to create a more equitable environment via the GPE, bilateral donors and the World Bank in particular retain their hierarchical positions through the maintenance of structures that reproduce their dominant status, thereby countering the principles that underpin the GPE’s mandate.     

Unequal partners? Networks,centrality, and aid to international education

Following the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, international development policy discourses have focused on partnership as an overarching principle. With a focus on participation and non-hierarchical relationships, new partnerships aim to reconstitute the aid relationship in a way that obviates power inequality and hegemony. However, empirical studies of these partnerships are scarce. This paper uses social network analysis to analyse relationships between organisations involved in prominent partnerships for education in international development. Our analysis of an original dataset demonstrates that bilateral donors, civil society organisations, and international organisations are most likely to occupy central positions in this network, meaning that they enjoy high levels of connectivity to many organisations. Literature on international networks suggests that these organisations would therefore shape the flow of information and ideas between organisations, influence the distribution of resources among members, and determine normative preferences of the partnerships. In contrast, recipient governments, private businesses, and universities occupy peripheral positions. We contextualise these findings with respect to literature on aid in international education and privatisation in the political economy of educational development.