Lending for learning: twenty years of World Bank support for basic education

Adriaan Verspoor

No 686, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The author traces the development of the World Bank's lending policies for education and draws lessons and recommendations from the Bank's experience. The Bank's lending for primary education has supported four main objectives : expanding educational opportunities, improving instructional quality, increasing efficiency, and strengthening management in the sector. In nonformal education, Bank lending has supported the goals of developing practical skills, promoting basic literacy, and building income generating skills. The author argues that Bank support to education has been most successful when it provides for in-depth analysis of subsectoral issues, concentrates on a few objectives, sustains its committment to these objectives over a long period, and delegates to the borrowing country the responsibility for sectoral analysis, policy formulation, and project development and implementation. From his review of Bank experience in supporting basic education, the author makes five principal recommendations for designing education projects : 1) support the locally determined processes that drive educational development; 2) invest in the most cost-effective inputs; 3) test carefully how an investment package works in a particular setting and monitor outcomes constantly; 4) strengthen the institutional capacity for national and regional strategic planning and management; and 5) design projects to allow a flexible response to a wide variety of local needs and unplanned events.

Keywords: Teaching and Learning; Curriculum&Instruction; Primary Education; Gender and Education; Girls Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1991-05-31
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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