The politics of quality reforms and the challenges for SDGs in education

Barbara Bruns, Isabel Harbaugh Macdonald and Ben Ross Schneider

World Development, 2019, vol. 118, issue C, 27-38

Abstract: Understanding the politics of education reform is crucial to assess the challenges facing the SDG of quality education. This article surveys the small academic literature on the politics of reform as well as a wide range of empirical research on reform experiences across the world, with an emphasis on recent reforms in Latin America. We focus on teacher policy reforms, which play a central role in raising learning in primary and secondary schools, but pose three special challenges. First, they are contentious, often threatening the institutional interests of well-organized and politically powerful teacher unions. Second, implementation is opaque, as impact depends on classroom-level change that is difficult for reformers to monitor. And, third, benefits are long-term, usually well beyond the political tenure of reform champions. A close review of all major stakeholders – teacher unions, business, NGOs, religious authorities, international development agencies, and others – is a crucial first step to understanding potential sources of opposition and support. Strategic issues in policy design and implementation include: consultation, sequencing, compensation, negotiation, communication, and sustaining reforms.

Keywords: Education politics; Teacher careers; Sustainable Development Goals; Latin America; Teacher unions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X19300336
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:118:y:2019:i:c:p:27-38

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.02.008

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().