The World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, and Private Sector Participation in Basic Education: Examining the Education Sector Strategy 2020

Abstract

The World Bank's new Education Sector Strategy 2020 (2011) points to an important role for private actors in the development of high-quality, high-equity education systems that effectively address poverty alleviation in low and middle-income countries. This chapter asks whether this emphasis on private participation is new, focusing in particular on Bank policies, research, and operations in K-12 education. It also explores some surprising disjunctures between the World Bank Group's official policies promoting privatization and its operational practices. To do so, the chapter draws on a separate research project for which we completed a review of the Bank's current portfolio of projects in K-12 education and a series of interviews with World Bank staff. We also look at the expansion of Bank activities beyond its traditional arms – the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA) lending facilities – by including a brief a review of the educational activities of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which directly supports the private sector in education.

Citation

Mundy, K. and Menashy, F. (2012), "The World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, and Private Sector Participation in Basic Education: Examining the Education Sector Strategy 2020", Collins, C.S. and Wiseman, A.W. (Ed.) Education Strategy in the Developing World: Revising the World Bank's Education Policy (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 113-131. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2012)0000016010