Education Policy Reforms

Over the last decade, many developing countries have embarked on large education reforms aimed at rapidly expanding the supply of education, achieving equity in the provision of education, and significantly improving the quality of education. Some of these reforms have been far-reaching, transforming the budget priorities of many countries and altering in a fundamental way the manner in which governments have traditionally made education services available and how the public sector has operated in partnership with the private sector. In the process, new relationships of accountability have been introduced. A number of developments have served as catalysts for reform. Changes in the world economy, the general dissatisfaction with the state of education in the 1980s, and findings emerging from academic research on economic growth, returns to education, and user fees, among many other phenomena, have delivered much of the impetus for education reforms.1 Specifically, a more market-oriented world economy has encouraged initiatives aimed at creating a more market-oriented environment for the provision of education, including measures to foster public-private approaches. The new literature on endogenous growth theory, wherein a worker’s productivity is seen as a function of both the worker’s own human capital and the average stock of human capital, has offered a fresh perspective on the reasons education is critical for development. In addition,