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A Look Inside the Report |
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| Trends in World Bank Support to Primary Education |
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Evolution in Financial Support to Primary Education
As a co-sponsor of the 1990 Education for All (EFA) movement, the World Bank has invested heavily in the movement’s centerpiece, primary education, over the past 15 years. During this period it has committed about $12.5 billion to developing countries for improving primary education, making it the largest financier of this subsector among development agencies. The funding during the 15 year period represents almost 90 percent of Bank financing for primary education since the beginning of its support to primary education in 1963. In recent years it has reached nearly 50 percent of the Bank’s total funding for education. In addition, the Bank has invested millions of dollars in analytical work related to primary education and entered into various forms of policy dialogue with governments. About 2/3 of the lending has been through IDA, one indicator of the fact that poorer countries are receiving an increasing share of the support. The regions launching the most projects were Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Finally, most of the lending has been managed by the Education Sector, although in the past few years the amount coming through other sectors (e.g., via social funds, PRSCs, or development policy loans) has grown, reaching about 31 percent of commitments in 2000-2004.
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At a Glance:
Trends in Bank Support to Primary Education |
Education for All (EFA) drove primary education commitments to new highs in the 1990s
Much of the growth in primary education lending has been in projects managed by sectoral units other than the Education Sector
Many of the projects from other sectors have small primary education components
Most are still active and have not been evaluated |
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Implementation of Bank Policy Objectives
The Bank’s sector policy for primary education since 1990 has emphasized two main objectives: expansion of access to primary education (especially for girls and other disadvantaged), and improvement of learning outcomes. Based on IEG’s examination of loan documents covering almost 200 projects committing over 50 percent to primary education (and a random sample of 50 projects, examined in-depth), expansion goals were found to be addressed in every region. Also, a large proportion of lending projects included equity features for reaching girls, low-income students or minority groups. Many fewer projects featured improved internal efficiency (reducing dropout and repetition).
Even fewer education sector projects – only one in five, including those recently approved – included improving learning outcomes in their development objectives. Rarer still were those having explicit aims to improve learning outcomes among the disadvantaged (or to even specifically track it). None of the projects managed outside of the education sector explicitly aimed to improve learning objectives.
Does this mean a widespread neglect of quality issues? Clearly no. Over 90 percent of ed sector projects had objectives to “improve educational quality.” But in completed projects (those evaluated), quality improvement has been mostly seen in terms of increases in inputs (books, materials, improved buildings) and outputs (trained teachers or parental support). Only about one third included the results that matter the most: learning outcomes. Among ongoing and new projects, a higher proportion have learning outcomes as performance indicators (65 to 80 percent depending on the year), but it is not clear how many of them will actually follow through with an effective program of assessing change in learning outcomes. Past performance has shown that many projects aspiring to measure change in student learning do not follow through with their plans.
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The
Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) is an independent unit within the World
Bank; it reports directly to the Bank's Board of Executive
Directors. The goals of IEG 's evaluations are to draw lessons
from Bank experience, and to provide an objective basis for
assessing the results of the Bank's work.
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