takes into account recent international initiatives in education, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative that commits governments to providing six full years of quality primary education to all children by the year 2015, and intentions announced at recent meetings of the Summit of the Americas regarding increases in secondary school enrolment and improvements in educational measurement and accountability. 1.5
The approaches and policy options detailed in the Framework are grounded in empirical evidence regarding the determinants of learning, attainment, the cost of providing education, and the reasons underlying the uneven performance of public education in different borrowing member countries of the Bank. The Framework reflects continuing exchanges and consultation with policy makers, experts, and researchers in the field, including three years of meetings organized by the Regional Policy Dialogue on Education and lessons drawn from years of experience in IDB lending and technical assistance in education.
1.6
A basic tenet of the Framework is that conditions are country specific and no model fits all. The Framework seeks to offer insights as to the effectiveness of education policy and attempted solutions in alternative settings. In so doing, it acknowledges that education is not an autonomous field. Broad economic, social, and political forces affect the supply of and the demand for schooling as well as the benefits that individuals can extract from their education. Still, education helps determine the range and quality of opportunities that people encounter in life. The Framework stresses the need for adequate domestic capacity for policymaking and the implementation of programs and, for the Bank, the need to organize itself in accordance with the challenges at hand. The Framework highlights the merits of goal setting, benchmarking, a results orientation and evaluation, and places strong emphasis on enhanced sector and institutional analysis as an integral part of the Bank’s support to education4.
1.7
The Framework is presented to the Board of Executive Directors at a time when the challenges linked to the region’s insertion into the global knowledge economy and the associated demands on education are recognized more clearly than ever
role of the education sector in the context of economic and social development and builds more explicit links with the IDB strategy and activities in the closely related area of science and technology development. 4 A profile outlining the major themes of this Strategic Framework was submitted for consultation to education authorities in the region as well as to selected groups of education policy researchers. The Framework has in many ways benefited from the feedback received. The preparation of the Framework benefited also from the substantial contributions made by the members of the Inter-departmental Working Group of education specialists representing the operations departments as well as INT and RES.
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