When Models Become Monopolies: The Making of Education Policy at the World Bank

To understand the World Bank's education sector strategy development, an historical perspective of where previous strategies have gone is essential. Rather than building schools the Education Strategy 2020 suggests that it will emphasize the efficiency of the education system and help reform its management, governance and finance. Rather than provide new curriculum, it will try to lay the foundations of an education knowledge base by supporting the use of assessments of academic achievement, both local and cross-national. Countries will be asked to measure their progress against statistical evidence. While none of these changes are entirely new, they all represent progress. In this chapter, the new strategy efforts of the World Bank are examined in relation to the contribution of education to social cohesion, education and corruption, education financing and educational quality and cognitive skills and economic development. This portion of the volume will emerge from a 22-year personal history of working with the World Bank on researching education quality, designing policies to support educational effectiveness and training senior officials worldwide in education policy-related lending strategy.