• Cover
• World Bank Financing of Education
• Contents
• Tables
• Preface to the first edition
• The World Bank and education
• Researching the World Bank
• Preface to the second edition
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on text
• Abbreviations
• 1 The Bank at work
• Bank purposes, structure, and style
• Bank activities in retrospect
• Conclusion
• Notes
• 2 Getting started in education 1960-3
• Options for educational financing
• Taking decisions on education
• Conclusion
• Notes
• 3 Early project experience in education 1963-8
• Establishing a project cycle in education
• UNESCO-World Bank Co-operative Program
• Initial project and policy issues
• Conclusion
• Notes
• 4 Education in the McNamara years 1968-80
• Policy, conceptual, and organizational changes
• A poverty focus in education - fact or fiction?
• Education project experience under McNamara
• Conclusion
• Notes
• 5 From development to reform
• Policy assessments in education
• 1980 Education Sector Policy Paper
• Adjusting to debt and recession
• Conclusion
• Notes
• 6 The triumph of educational fundamentalism 1986-95
• Alternative policies for financing education
• The research-policy nexus
• The basics of policy reform
• Conclusion
• Notes
• 7 From Wolfensohn to Wolfowitz
• Reclaiming legitimacy
• Education in the Wolfensohn Bank
• Conclusion
• Notes
• 8 World Bank priorities for educational financing
• Understanding Bank constructions of policy
• Bank stances on educational priorities
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index

Based on detailed analysis of thousands of confidential World Bank documents, this book outlines the evolution of World Bank lending policies in education, and assesses the policy impact of the Bank's educational projects. The author demonstrates that the World Bank lies at the centre of the major changes in global education of our time. Its financial power and influence have helped shape the economic and social policies of many governments, including policies that affect education. It has been an influential proponent of the rapid expansion of formal education systems around the world, and has financed much of that expansion. It has been instrumental in forging those policies that see education as a precursor to modernisation. It has served as a major purveyor of Western ideas about how education and the economy are, or should be, related. The author's exposition of how all of this has been achieved, and the implications of the achievement, is unique. It will be of enormous value to those studying, or working in, educational policy in developing countries, international organisations and financial institutions, and aid agencies.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• 1. The Bank at work: legacies from th 1940s and 1950s
• 2. Getting started in education 1960-3
• 3. Early project experience in education 1963-8
• 4. The McNamara revolution 1968-80
• 5. Debt and recession: policy dilemmas in the 1980s
• 6. Project experience in education
• 7. Setting Priorities for educational financing Bibliography, Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Based on detailed analysis of thousands of confidential World Bank documents, this book outlines the evolution of World Bank lending policies in education, and assesses the policy impact of the Bank's educational projects. The author demonstrates that the World Bank lies at the centre of the major changes in global education of our time. Its financial power and influence have helped shape the economic and social policies of many governments, including policies that affect education. It has been an influential proponent of the rapid expansion of formal education systems around the world, and has financed much of that expansion. It has been instrumental in forging those policies that see education as a precursor to modernisation. It has served as a major purveyor of Western ideas about how education and the economy are, or should be, related. The author's exposition of how all of this has been achieved, and the implications of the achievement, is unique. It will be of enormous value to those studying, or working in, educational policy in developing countries, international organisations and financial institutions, and aid agencies.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Experts illuminate the challenges of achieving universal basic and secondary education, discussing the importance and difficulties not only of expanding access to education and but also of improving the quality of education. Access to education increased enormously in the past century, and higher proportions of people are completing primary, secondary, or tertiary education than ever before. But efforts to universalize the provision of high-quality schooling face major problems. In "Educating All Children" (which grew out of a multidisciplinary project undertaken by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences), leading experts consider the challenges of achieving universal basic and secondary education globally. The contributors discuss the current state of education and how to measure global educational progress, the history of compulsory education, political and financial obstacles to expanding education, the role of educational assessment and evaluation in developing countries, cost estimates for providing universal education (and why they differ so widely), the potential consequences of expanded global education, and the relationship between education and health. The research suggests that achieving universal primary and secondary education is both urgently needed and feasible. Will the international community commit the necessary economic, human, and political resources? The challenge, say the editors, is "as inspiring and formidable...as any extraterrestrial adventures - and far more likely to enrich and improve life on earth.".
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book analyses the policy issues facing educational planners, administrators, and policy makers in developing countries when choosing between alternative strategies of educational investment.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Reforming education financing systems in transition countries : an introduction to six case studies
• Per capita financing of general education in Armenia
• Per capita financing of education in Estonia
• School vouchers in Georgia : implementation of a simple idea in a complex environment
• Student basket reform in Lithuania : fine-tuning central and local financing of education
• Per capita financing of general education in Poland : a case study
• Per capita financing of general education in Russia : an assessment of the financing reform in the Chuvash Republic and the Tver Oblast
• Per capita financing of general education in Europe and Central Asia : has it delivered on its promise? : an overview of six country case studies.

This book reviews the experience with one specific though widely introduced approach to funding general education, namely per capita financing (PCF), in six countries in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region in an effort to learn which outcomes were achieved and how. Six country case studies are the bulk of the book and were chosen as a project that the World Bank initiated back in 2007. The set of countries chosen (Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and the Russian Federation) was motivated by the fact that the World Bank was actively involved in supporting reforms in these countries and, in some cases, played a fundamental role in bringing these reforms to fruition. The hope is that, as a result, the likelihood of observing the outcomes of per capita financing is higher. An attempt was made at geographic variation across the ECA region as well. Chapter 1 provides a general introduction to the book. Chapters 2 through 7 discuss the country case studies. The case studies are presented in alphabetical order: Armenia (chapter 2), Estonia (chapter 3), Georgia (chapter 4), Lithuania (Chapter 5), Poland (Chapter 6), and Russia (chapter 7). All six chapters present a similar structure. First, an introduction is provided to motivate the discussion. Second, the historical background to the introduction of the PCF system is discussed. Third, the design of the PCF scheme is analyzed. Fourth, the peculiarities of the implementation of the scheme are described. Fifth, an assessment of a set of three main outcomes - efficiency, equity and transparency/accountability - is presented. A sixth and final section provides a summary of the lessons learned in each of the cases. Chapter 8 presents an in-depth overview of the case studies, within a common framework to compare these experiences.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Trends in World Bank support to primary education
• Improving access and learning outcomes for the disadvantaged
• Better management for better outcomes
• Conclusions and recommendations.