Higher education in Asian countries and the role of international ...

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Asian countries out of total 48 countries in this continent. In terms of both the total number of
projects and total lending for the Bank, Asia
has the largest share in the world. It is
followed by Africa where the Bank invested
in higher education: in this region the Bank
invested 5.5 billion US dollars in 39
countries on 147 projects, 36 of them are
active. While in the rest of the world, the
Bank supported 156 projects by lending 10.2
billion US dollars to 42 countries during the
same period. Apart from loans for higher
education the Bank also gives grants for this sub-sector. Here one thing of great importance that
grants given by the Bank is only one percent of the total investment committed for higher
education by the Bank. According to the Bank‟s past fifty years data on grants for higher
education, a major share of the grants were given to Africa: 68% to African countries while 25%
grant to Asian countries. (See the table 26).
Summary of the World Bank funded projects that include higher education in Asia
Area/ region
Number of
countries Total
Projects
Closed Active
WB Commitments
Total Grant
lending Amount
East Asia 2 26 25 1 2386 0
South east Asia 10 67 56 11 4764.45 21.1
Central Asia 2 4 1 3 165.33 0
West Asia 5 28 23 5 1202.61 62
South Asia 8 62 50 12 4943.1 0
Asia Total 27 187 155 32 13461.49 83.1
Africa Total 39 147 111 36 5529.41 222.06
Other regions
total
42 156 126 30 10286.53 17.84
World Total 108 490 392 98 29277.43 323
Source: Table is produced by the research, data from The World Bank 2011, (Amount unit is in US$ Million)
Table 26 Summary of the World Bank funded projects that include higher education in Asia
South Asia is the only sub-region of Asian continent where the Bank is funding to all of the eight
countries for their higher education: US$ 4.9 billion (37%) for 62 projects. It is followed by