The world bank and education critiques and alternatives

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Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education

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The World Bank and education:

critiques and alternatives

Phan Le Haa a

Depart ment of Educat ional Foundat ions, College of Educat ion, Universit y of Hawaii at Manoa, Manoa, HI, USA

Published online: 29 May 2014.

To cite this article: Phan Le Ha (2014): The World Bank and educat ion: crit iques and

alt ernat ives, Compare: A Journal of Comparat ive and Int ernat ional Educat ion, DOI:

10.1080/ 03057925.2014.922743

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BOOK REVIEW

The World Bank and education: critiques and alternatives, edited by Steven J Klees, Joel Samoff, and Nelly P Stromquist, Rotterdam, Sense Publishers, 2012, 245 pp., £17 (paperback), ISBN 978-94-6091-901-5

As clearly stated in the introduction: ‘this book brings together for the first time a group of some of the most widely known observers of the World Bank’s (WB) education policy’ (xvi) who are known for their significant work in comparative research in developing countries The book features 14 chapters and a conclusion It is divided into four parts: Framing the Issues (chapters by Steiner-Khamsi, Nordtveit, Kamat, and Klees), Learning, Assessment and the Role of Teachers (chapters by de Siqueira, Ginsburg, Soudien, and Samoff), Research and Policy (chapters by Verger and Bonal, Samoff, Stromquist, Vally and Spreen, and Robertson) and Reshaping the Future (one chapter by Hickling-Hudson and Klees) From cover to cover, and through a collective voice, the book problematises and critiques World Bank policies, particularly the World Bank Education Strategy 2020 (WBES 2020) released in 2011 The authors critique the ways in which these poli-cies are driven by neoliberal ideology, largely informed by WB in-house and WB-funded research evidence, and constrained by economic-oriented concepts of education and learning that replace human rights with human capital theories, overlook social equity, fail to embrace gender inequalities and promote privatisation of and in education

The book deconstructs the WB’s self-claim to be the democratic evidence-and-research-based super think tank for knowledge and global education policy It also questions the all in learning for all promoted by the Strategy in which what is defined by ‘learning’ and by ‘all’ is neither evident nor equitable All in all, the WBES 2020’s theoretical underpin-nings, quantitative-dictated methodological approach, narrow and rigid scope, testing-oriented educational solutions, advocated performance-based skills-prepared educational criteria, and exclusion of the fundamental role of the teacher are challenged and proved disastrous to developing countries’ education and wellbeing Throughout the book, critiques of the WBES 2020 are situated in broader engagement with other WB educational policies, those policies that are shaped by neoliberal global education ideology believed by the authors to have brought unjust outcomes to numerous communities in the developing world over the past three decades

Compare, 2014

I acknowledge the book’s important contributions to debates and scholar-ship on education and development and its consistently critical stance regarding the many fundamental problems associated with WB policies in general and the WBES 2020 in particular I am, however, left convinced that the book as a whole does not deliver effectively and admirably what it promises First, it is clear that the book sets a tone for an ideological war

by education and development scholars against economics scholars whose works are deemed anti-education and anti-equity In this ideological war, however, the voices of the latter are almost totally missing The former, in critiquing the ideology, philosophy and academic validity of a handful of economics scholars’ works that have informed WB policies, fail to specify these works and to engage with them in any rigorous or systematic manner

As such, many of these critiques strike the reader as ‘straw man’ critiques Second, about half of all the chapters (particularly chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10) tend to express somewhat emotional and opinionated reactions to WB policies General and loose claims are made, and dramatic, sensational and alarmist observations are presented, the kinds of writings often seen in newspapers targeting the general public While these chapters criticise WB policies for their sweeping and content-less nature and for lacking validity and reliable rigour in justifying the Bank’s educational philosophy and ide-ology, these chapters, in establishing their critiques, fall into this same trap They also lack solid theoretical and conceptual foundations in foregrounding the problems It is as though the authors had already decided the problems for the readers without feeling the need to justify their arguments

Third, in its critiques of WB policies as exerting an imperialist, neocolo-nialist power on behalf of the powerful West over the less powerful non-West, the book collectively reproduces the normative, simplistic dichotomy

of developed and developing countries This uncritical stance again presents the former as an active granting agent and the latter as a passive receiving subject, the very construct the authors of all the chapters aim to disrupt This is an embedded paradox that the book does not acknowledge and address, which leads to my fourth concern Complexities underlying econo-mies and societies around the world tend to be overlooked in the book Still, the world is seen through the eyes of development studies authors, through lenses that are inherently biased, somewhat hegemonic and far from realities As such, an over-emphasis on WB policies’ problems tends to lose sight of other equally important issues found in many aid/loan-receiving countries, including corruption, local politics and internal competition in gaining funds Fifth, while I am supportive of the ideological, philosophical and educational underpinnings of the alternatives to the WB’s strategies for education and development, specifically the Global Fund for Education (GFE) principles proposed in the final chapter by Hickling-Hudson and Klees, at the same time I wonder how, in what ways, and to what extent they can be realised, given increasing budget cuts in public education

2 Book review

globally I also ask how such alternatives may be perceived and taken up

by emerging superpowers such as India, China and Brazil as they are start-ing to play more active roles in global education in ways that are not neces-sarily equitable and just Perhaps we need more concrete, more detailed and less romanticised and less idealistic alternatives based on the GFE principles

as a way forward Finally, given that several authors have been involved in WB-funded projects, I would want to see more balanced analyses of their insights into many issues laid out in the book Why is it that influential scholars with diverse international experience and expertise in education and development have not yet found ways to influence WB policies? I believe it is more complicated than one simple claim that these scholars’ works are at odds with the Bank’s pursuit of neoliberal ideology in educa-tion Their insights would not only address this curiosity but also add much value to scholarship, policy directives and research agendas in the field and more broadly

Overall, the book is suitable for general development and education courses because it introduces and discusses various important issues ideal for debate and analysis However, for graduate classes, instructors will need

to explicitly direct students to theoretically and conceptually sound chapters such as those by Soudien (7), Verger and Bonal (9), Vally and Spreen (12) and Robertson (13), while using the other chapters to generate further discussions and critiques of the many issues identified in the book My critical review of the book, after all, does not denounce its noble mission nor depreciate its collective powerful spirit of critiquing, which I see as profoundly inspiring

Phan Le Ha Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education

University of Hawaii at Manoa, Manoa, HI, USA

halephan@hawaii.edu

© 2014, Phan Le Ha

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2014.922743

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