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The most striking features of the World Development Report 2018’s chapter on technical and vocational training (TVET) are that it is a superficial examination of the role and impact of TVET around the world, and that it persists in perpetuating a very narrow framing of the role that the sector...

The 2018 World Development Report “Learning to Realize Education’s Promise” provides deep insights into the worldview of the World Bank, the world’s most powerful development institution. Instead of critically questioning the Bank’s explicit claims – as most of the blogs thus far have done – it is also worth pausing...

The 2018 World Development Report (WDR) “Learning to Realize Education’s Promise” has been widely praised for placing education at the forefront of the international development agenda. But while signaling a global commitment to increasing education access and quality in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2018 WDR...

My colleagues in my school probably know the World Bank quite superficially, at least if they teach economics history, geography or social sciences. For the rest of them I would say there is name recognition, but not much more than that. However, they would recognize its policy, the tone and...

One of the primary avenues highlighted for educational improvement in the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) 2018 is school-based management (SBM). This is not surprising, as SBM has been one of the World Bank’s preferred education governance reforms since the 1990s. Indeed, as Dean Nielsen, former Senior Evaluation Officer...

The World Development report 2018 (WDR2018) is right about the global learning crisis: many children not in school, educational inequity, and low quality of learning outcomes. But it often misses the point when trying to use available evidence to realize education’s promise. The problem is that there are so many...

The annual World Development Report (WDR) is the World Bank’s flagship publication. The 2018 report is entitled Learning to Realize Education’s Promise. In the 40 year history of the WDR, this is the first time its focus has been on education. Many commentators have welcomed this as needed in this...

The World Development Report 2018 recognises, although briefly, that poor working conditions for teachers can undermine learning (p.138). It argues that the status of the teaching profession has declined over the last few decades, and that as a result, “teachers deserve more from the systems that employ them” (p.138).

The replenishment events of major global funds tend to be donor-dominated affairs, but on 2nd February 2018 the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) promises to be different. For the first time ever a replenishment conference will take place in Africa – hosted by Senegal – and on...

With the production of a World Development Report focused on education, the World Bank makes a decisive claim to its authority in education policy. Given an introductory section acknowledging 119 “researchers and specialists across the world” who provided “feedback and suggestions” for the report (WDR 2018 hereafter), it would seem...

When the World Bank announced that the 2018 World Development Report (WDR) would be on education, I was sceptical. I’m not denying the Bank’s research expertise. It devotes substantial money and staff and has a trove of reports that are accessible in the public domain. It’s also open to criticism...

The World Development Report on Education, "Learning to Realize Education's Promise," contains both promise and peril.

The World Bank’s 2018 world development report, with its focus on education and the need ‘to realize education’s promise’, is a welcome, if perhaps surprising, step forward. The report scores highly on intent, but it must work with teachers, not against them, if the report’s ambitions are to become a...

Educating students to be engaged democratic citizens requires that they learn to engage with current affairs in schools. Engaging students with real world issues is also a way to get students to become more motivated with their studies and, over the long term, to be more effective professionally and more...

The World Development Report (WDR) 2018 - Learning to realize Education’s Promise - places learning at the center to equip children and youth for the future. The report recognizes the key role teachers play in achievement of quality education.

The dedicated reader of the 2018 World Development Report (WDR) on learning and education will find moments of nuanced discussion. Unfortunately, these gems are brief caveats to flawed headlines and conclusions. The World Bank report valorizes professional teaching while degrading the voices and needs of teachers.

The 2018 World Development Report marks an important milestone—for the first time in 40 years the World Bank’s dominant research publication is dedicated to education.

Does the report live up to its promise or leave much to be desired? In a new EI blog series, education experts and activists unpack, critique and challenge the insights of the WDR.