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What is the World Bank doing to support education?
The World Bank has been helping advance learning in developing
countries since 1963 and remains today the world's single
largest provider of external funding for education. The past few
years have seen marked progress toward Education for All, an
international effort to provide every boy and girl in the
developing world with a good-quality, free and compulsory
primary school education. As a major supporter of the
initiative, the Bank has worked vigorously with country and
global partners to map out the path to the 2015 education goal
of giving every girl and boy on earth a full free primary
education. The Bank has also been working to put in place the
Fast-Track Initiative which aims to accelerate progress toward
meeting the MDGs.
Bank support for education has a dual focus:
to help countries achieve universal primary education and
equally, help countries build the higher-level and flexible
skills needed to compete in today's global, knowledge-driven
markets. The Bank also supports an emergent level of education
called Life-Long Learning which keeps a country's workforce
continually schooled in new hi-tech knowledge. As with all World
Bank assistance, lending is only one part of a broader package
of services. The Bank complements its finance with policy
advice; analysis; sharing of global knowledge and best practice;
technical assistance and capacity building; and support for
consensus-building. These non-financial services are crucial to
ensuring that countries make effective use of aid.
What is the Education for All
program?
Education for All (EFA) is an international commitment aimed at
providing every boy and girl in the developing world a good
quality, free, and compulsory primary school education. It was
first launched in 1990 and, in the face of slow progress,
reaffirmed in September 2000 as a Millennium Development Goal to
be achieved by 2015. The EFA commitment is specifically to:
- Ensure universal primary education for all
children by 2015.
- Eliminate gender disparities in primary and
secondary education.
- Improve early childhood care and education.
- Ensure equitable access to "life
skills" programs.
- Achieve a 50 percent increase in adult
literacy by 2015.
- Improve all aspects of the quality of
education.
What is the Fast-Track Initiative?
The Fast-Track Initiative (FTI) is a results-based initiative
launched in June 2002 and driven by a partnership of education
donors and low-income countries focused on accelerating progress
toward the education MDGs. The FTI was conceived as an
application of the March 2002 "Monterrey Consensus"-a
compact committing donors to provide additional policy, data,
capacity building, and financial support to countries that are
committed to implementing sound policies and prepared to accept
accountability for results. Initially, 18 countries were invited
to join the initiative, by virtue of having in place a poverty
reduction strategy and an education sector plan agreed with
donors. The first seven of these countries received a 50 percent
increase in external resources for primary education. In
November 2003, FTI was expanded to include all eligible
low-income countries (adding up to a total of about 40
countries), while a Catalytic Fund of $235 million was also set
up to provide start-up support to countries having difficulty
attracting donors.
What importance does the
World Bank give to education in its lending programs?
In the fiscal 2004 year, the Bank worked in unprecedented
partnership with developing countries and the donor community to
move forward the education agenda. The Bank's efforts sought to
help strengthen international commitment, build consensus, and
mobilize resources for education. As of June 30, 2004, 89 low
and middle income countries were implementing a total of 142
World Bank -financed projects, worth about $8.5 billion. Lending
for education was $1.7 billion in the year ending June 30,2004.
This included a record $1.2 billion dollars in lending from the International
Development Association (IDA).
A look at the Bank’s support for education
at the country level over the past fiscal year shows about half
of the year’s 21 projects supported primary education. The
South Asia region accounted for the largest share of total
education lending - $832 million or 40 percent of the total. The
second highest share went to Africa (22 percent), home to the
largest number of countries not on track to meet the 2015 goal
of universal primary completion.
Why should countries invest
in education?
Education is today one of the five corporate priorities in the
World Bank's overall assistance strategy to help countries
reduce poverty. Investing in education has many benefits for
people, society, and the world as a whole. Good quality
education is among the most powerful measures known to reduce
poverty and inequality and promote sustained economic growth.
The major benefits are:
- It enables people to read, reason,
communicate, and make informed choices.
- It increases individual productivity,
earnings and quality of life; studies show that each year of
schooling increases individual earnings by a worldwide
average of about 10 percent.
- It greatly reduces female vulnerability to
ill health: Studies show that each year of schooling lowers
fertility by 10 percent; better educated women have
healthier babies and experience lower infant mortality; and
better educated girls (and boys) exhibit lower rates of
HIV/AIDS infection.
- It is fundamental for the development of
democratic societies.
- It is key to building up a highly-skilled
and flexible workforce-the backbone of a dynamic, globally
competitive economy.
- It is crucial for creating, applying, and
spreading knowledge-and therefore a country's prospects for
innovation, comparative advantage, and foreign investment
inflows.
How is the World Bank's support for education helping
bridge the digital divide?
Bank support for technology components in education projects has
increased steadily, and over three-fourths of education projects
include a technology component. The equivalent lending volume
for these components to total education lending in each fiscal
year has been rising from 14 percent in fiscal year 1997 to over
40 percent of total new commitments in fiscal year 2000. Lending
for distance teaching and open learning has been rising, and
reached 57% of total lending for technology in education in
2000. Distance education has cost-effectiveness benefits that
make it an increasingly powerful alternative to the traditional
classroom, especially in developing countries. In its role as a
knowledge Bank, the World Bank has also led the creation of a
worldwide community of practice (GDNET project) in the field of
ICT and education with the participation of partners and
practitioners from all six world regions.
To what extent does the Bank
support adult education?
Expanding literacy and education for adults and out-of-school
youth is an important part of achieving the Education for All
goals. The MDGs call for gains in the literacy rate of 15-24
year-olds, particularly women. The Bank has supported over 100
different adult literacy and education programs over the past 30
years, by addressing the needs of school dropouts and children
in remote areas and at risk (AIDS orphans, street children).
This support includes basic education and lifelong learning for
illiterate women, especially mothers, and poor and disadvantaged
people; funding projects; supporting analysis; drawing lessons
from country experience; expanding the knowledge base;
strengthening inclusion of literacy concerns in poverty
reduction strategies; supporting skills training and
income-generating activities; and increasingly involving
parents, communities, and NGOs.
What is the World Bank doing
to support education for girls?
Since the Beijing Conference in 1995, the Bank has provided
about US$7.3 billion in support of about 250 projects addressing
needs in girls' education. The Bank strives to bring together
partners of the Partnership on Sustainable Strategies for Girls'
Education. At a workshop in May 2003, partners agreed that they
would engage in a country if it had a significant gender gap at
the primary level; had an Interim or full Poverty Reduction
Strategy in place; was an FTI country; and had some particular
window of opportunity for action (for example, a large Bank
operation in preparation). Ongoing technical support to FTI
countries with large populations and gender gaps includes
efforts to promote demand-side interventions such as improved
targeting, provision of sanitation and water, and gender
sensitization training of teachers, administrators, and
textbooks.
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