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

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Several projects successfully improved the management and planning through
establishing networks and supporting shared facility models.
5.3.13 Critics on the World Bank role
International organizations are complicated structures with bureaucratic line of hierarchy, which
are usually under the influence of internal and external forces. In such a framework it is very
difficult to pinpoint precisely and identify exactly a policy of an IO towards any field of its
activity. Likewise the Bank‟s policy on education is extremely complex, complicated and
changes with time. Psacharopoulos (2006) has classified the Bank‟s policies on education into
four periods; from 1945 to 1963- No policy on education; from 1963 to 1987- focused manpower
and vocational education; form 1987 to 1990 - internal debates and confused; from 1990 to
1997-Basic and general education; since 1997 to present - No clear priorities (Psacharopoulos,
World Bank policy on education: A personal account., 2006). The lending trend provide a clear
evidence that since the commencement of 21 st century the Bank has been shifting towards
balanced policy by giving due importance to all education sub-sectors from pre-primary to
tertiary level.
Distribution of the WB lending amount by subsector (%)
Education sub-sectors 1963–69 1970–79 1980–89 1990–99 2000–01
Pre-primary 0.1 0 0 1.3 4.1
Primary 2.7 12.6 18.9 35.6 45
General secondary 51.7 18.5 8.6 15.2 16.7
Vocational secondary 16.7 11.7 2.1 1.5 0
Vocational post-secondary 6 21.8 25.1 7.5 8.1
Teacher training 6.9 8.2 8.8 6.1 1.2
Higher education 13.6 17 25.5 18.2 6.9
Other 2.3 10.3 11.1 14.5 17.9
Total 100 100 100 100 10
Source: (Psacharopoulos, World Bank policy on education: A personal account., 2006), page 332
Table 27 Distribution of the WB lending amount by subsector (%)
On the grounds of the World Bank commissioned studies, to assess the returns to investment in
higher education, the Bank set a pre-condition for education sector loans to cut back the budget
for higher education. Bank‟s this stance put the survival of higher education institutions in a
difficulty. Likewise many of the aid agencies, active in the poor countries, also adopted the
similar policy consequently the financial support and strategic guidance was more or less
disappeared (Olsson & Mkandawire, 2009). Through 1970s and early 1980s the World Bank
criticized the investment in higher education and emphasized on redirection of resources to