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

The World Bank
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The World Bank is a leading source of funds for higher education in Asia. For the last two
decades it has become a prominent actor in the field of higher education and it is implementing
and supporting hundreds of projects at national and sub-regional, and regional levels in Asia.
These projects in higher education are of wide variety and scope that include: capacity
development, technical assistance, quality development and assurance, information sharing,
internationalization and cross border education, research cooperation and collaboration, outcome
assessment and financing higher education sub-sector.
The Bank has been investing in higher education in Asia for many decades and, as compared to
other regions, it has made the largest investment in Asian higher education in more than 125
projects. But the share of the Bank‟s funding, in the majority of the countries, is less than five
percent of the total budget that is allocated by the government to education sector including
higher education sector. So it is evident that the present development and growth in higher
education in this region cannot solely be attributed the Bank‟s investment in this sub-sector. It is
very difficult to see the impact of any single program of an IGO in isolation or separately in a
country or region. At the same time we should not ignore the Bank‟s role as “source of change”
through inducing peer pressure, boosting competition among states and encouraging the
education for development.
OECD
OECD is not purely an educational organization but it works on education to bring economic
development. OECD acts as a forum for its member governments and partners to study and
formulate the best policies for promoting economic and social development. OECD is
contributing to the higher education in many ways; it supports and facilitates sharing of
experiences and ideas, supports policy reforms, monitors and forecast economic trends, collects,
analyzes and disseminates data and statistics, conducts peer reviews studies of member state
performance, provides technical assistance through expertise, promotes innovative ideas.
OECD has launched six major initiatives to that directly and indirectly contribute to the
development of higher education in its member states. These initiatives are: thematic review of
tertiary education; the Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education;
thematic Review on Adult learning; AHELO-Assessment of Higher Education Learning