World Bank Group launches new education strategy

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The new strategy calls for stronger systems to improve the quality and reach of education in three areas, said a press statement. First, the Bank Group will prioritize and finance reform of countries' education systems as a whole to improve the quality of student learning. The Bank Group will focus on increasing accountability and results as a complement to providing school buildings, teacher training, and textbooks. Strengthening education systems means aligning their teacher policies, governance, management, financing, and incentive mechanisms with the goal of learning for all. Second, the Bank Group will match new education financing with results. The strategy highlights examples of recent innovative projects in Bangladesh, Jamaica, and Vietnam, which have used results-based financing and other incentives to improve student and school performance, and can serve as models for other countries. Third, the Bank Group will build a leading knowledge base for education reform of what works and what doesn't in education reform, using impact evaluations, learning assessments, and new system assessment and benchmarking tools that are being developed. By benchmarking education reform progress against international best practices, the Bank Group will help countries diagnose the strengths and weaknesses in their reform efforts and better target future investments. "I strongly endorse the key messages of the World Bank's new education strategy," says Prof. Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufai, Nigeria's Minister of Education. "For my country, Nigeria, 'Learning for All' is our goal-to ensure that all our children, girls and boys, poor and well-to-do, north and south, can go to a good school and can learn what they need to have successful and happy lives." Education and the World Bank Group?During the last 48 years, the World Bank Group has substantially contributed to educational development around the world. Since launching its first education project in 1962 to build secondary schools in Tunisia, the Bank has invested $69 billion in education via more than 1,500 projects. Using zero-interest financing from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's fund for the poorest countries, the Bank has helped recruit and/or train more than 3 million teachers, and build or refurbish more than 2 million classrooms, which helped more than 105 million children a year. Through IDA-supported projects in India, 20 million more school-age children are now attending school, and 98 percent now have a school within walking distance.