pursuit of profit, advocate policy choices not in the interest of students (p. 13). It is refreshingly forthright in admitting difficulties in overseeing systems with a myriad of private schools, suggesting ‘governments may deem it more straightforward to provide quality education than to regulate a disparate collection of providers that may not have the same objectives’ (p. 177). Finally, the report considers systemic effects, albeit briefly, that private schooling expansion ‘can undermine the political constituency for effective public schooling in the longer term’ (p. 177). Massive. So- the 2018 WDR makes some welcome interventions. However, to fully realise its potential, here are my top two suggestions for what it could have done better (there are others—I haven’t touched on teachers—but this post is now resembling an article): Make the case for financing education less ambiguous. This has been raised as the main point of contention in nearly all the online reviews of the 2018 WDR (e.g., David Archer of Action Aid and Education International). And I would have to agree. The ambiguity is incongruous with recommendations of high-level fora. For example, the Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for SDG4 is unequivocal: The ‘Least developed countries need to reach or exceed the upper end of these benchmarks [4-6% GDP, 15-20% national budgets] if they are to achieve the targets’ (emphasis mine). The discussion is also somewhat ahistorical. An earlier analysis by Mehrotra (Mehrotra, 1998) of what he termed, 10 ‘early high-achievers in education’ (Barbados, Botswana, Costa Rica, Cuba, Kerala (India), Malaysia, Mauritius, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe) concluded that high public expenditure as a proportion of GDP and as a proportion of national budgets were among the factors that contributed to expansion of relatively better quality primary education in early post-colonial contexts. If the aim now is to universalise education to secondary by 2030 (SDG Target 4.1), surely stable, secure, and increased financing by donors and domestic governments is pivotal, especially in countries that do not meet even the minimum benchmarks.
learning outcomes. The Report acknowledges: ‘Learning is a complex process that is difficult to break down into simple linear relationships from cause to effect’ (p. 178). And it rightly attributes poor learning outcomes to poor quality provision. No one would argue otherwise. However, ‘quality’ is influenced by a host of factors, many of which may be normative, socio-political, and micro-political (i.e., informal institutions). The learning outcomes that are the subject of the WDR are produced through learning processes structured in formal schooling processes. And formal schooling processes are embedded in the overt and hidden curriculum of the schools and classrooms (i.e., values and the reproduction of those values in formal schools) that children of different backgrounds have access to, and how those children, in turn, are positioned within them. For example, research in India (Naorem & Ramachandram, 2013) shows that broader societal caste-based practices continue to affect how children experience schooling even within universalising initiatives. Based on emerging analysis from my current study of roughly 1500 school-aged children in Delhi, I argue that silent exclusion reflects broader societal exclusion and will impede meaningful learning even if children are enrolled (see also Lewin, 2007). This is messy stuff. Which means that improving quality will be harder than ‘aligning all the ingredients’ (Box 9.2). These are deep-seated issues that cannot easily be overcome by the ‘proper’ incentives. Acknowledgements: I am grateful to David Evans, a Lead Economist on the 2018 WDR Team, for sharing insights and clarifying questions on the WDR process. Any errors or misunderstandings are mine.
Focus on learning processes within schools and classrooms and their potential effects on 13