68263 APRIL 2012 World Bank Education Sector Strategy 2020: LEARNING FOR ALL Strengthening Education Systems to Improve Learning The World Bank is off to a robust start in implementing its new Education Sector Strategy 2020: Learning for All. A year after unveiling the strategy, the Main Messages Bank is working to remove the barriers that limit educational opportunities for Education should lead to more learning. Key to girls and other disadvantaged children; developing and applying new tools to results is measuring learning, evaluating what works help countries improve their education systems and outcomes; and supporting in improving learning, and using this evidence to countries to deliver the learning and skills necessary for all people to live inform policy change and investments. healthy and productive lives. Countdown to 2015. The Bank is increasing support to the poorest countries to reach universal The Bank’s core objective is to help countries improve Learning for All. primary completion and gender parity in primary and Learning—not only schooling—is critical for children and youth to succeed. secondary education. And learning for all—giving not just some but all children an opportunity to Gender equity in education merits high priority. learn—is critical for a nation to prosper. The strategy calls for: There are indisputable benefits to ensuring that f Investing early, because the foundational skills acquired early in childhood girls and disadvantaged populations have an equal opportunity to learn and excel in order for make possible a lifetime of learning households, communities, and nations to prosper. f Investing smartly, because investments that prioritize learning and The World Bank is committed to being a strong, skills development—and their measurement, to inform reform—are most accountable partner. The Bank is committed to effective in producing results open data in pursuit of results for countries, and will publish annually a performance report on the f Investing for all, targeting girls and disadvantaged populations, because a Education Strategy results framework. nation can prosper only when all children enjoy an opportunity to learn. For the Bank, success in education has to do with strengthening countries’ education systems. It is pursuing this goal by (A) providing technical and financial support to countries, (B) developing knowledge, and (C) Education MDGs: Progress towards 2015 strengthening Bank staff capacities. MDG 2 Universal Primary 15 2 9 36 18 Completion A. Providing technical and financial support to countries MDG 3 In September 2010, the Bank pledged to increase its support of countries Gender Parity in 32 7 11 19 11 Primary and Secondary not on track to reach the education Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), committing to top up its average annual IDA financing for basic Total of 80 IDA and IDA-blend countries education with an additional $750 million over five years. By the end of Fiscal  Achieved  Off-track  No data Year 2012, the Bank will be nearly halfway toward meeting this pledge.  On-track  Seriously off-track Bank-supported operations in FY11-12 show strong support outcomes when teachers received intensive training on for key themes: reading instruction, while an evaluation in India found that providing information effectively to parents improved school z Promoting equal access and improved quality of accountability and learning outcomes. education for children disadvantaged by gender, income, disability, and other factors. More than 25 projects in FY12 z Strengthening education systems. The Bank’s new SABER focus on disadvantaged children, and more than half of these (Systems Approach for Better Education Results*) initiative projects aim to increase girls’ opportunities to learn, through underpins its support for Learning for All and is being widely such measures as demand-side interventions including applied around the world to help countries examine and targeted scholarships and conditional cash transfers. Projects improve their education systems. are also helping disadvantaged populations in other ways— z Under SABER, the Bank is collecting policy and enhancing the job skills of young women in Afghanistan and institutional data covering 13 critical policy domains, Ethiopia, for example, to prepare them to be competitive in including Teacher Policies, Student Assessment, and the labor market. Early Childhood Development. SABER case studies, z Support for early childhood development. In Mongolia and country reports, background papers, and policy notes are Bangladesh, project interventions are strengthening pre- expanding the global evidence base in the various policy primary education systems and increasing access for girls domains. and rural children so that all children can have an equal start. z SABER tools are beginning to influence sector strategies z Assessing learning. With support from the Russia Education and project design in many countries. In the Kyrgyz Aid for Development (READ) program, the Bank is helping Republic, three SABER domain tools (School Autonomy Tajikistan set up a National Testing Center, Angola implement and Accountability; Student Assessment; Teachers) a first-ever nationwide assessment, and six other countries helped to shape project design. In Nigeria, the Bank strengthen their student assessment systems to inform worked with the government to apply four SABER domain teaching and increase learning. tools to develop the upcoming State Education Program Investment Project. B. Developing knowledge Share of countries in region applying SABER New knowledge is reinforcing areas prioritized in the strategy: Sub-Saharan Africa 72% z Improving access to jobs. Regional flagship reports have East Asia & Pacific 88% provided countries with knowledge and policy advice on how Europe & Central Asia 48% to address the shortage of labor market-relevant skills, ways Latin America & Caribbean 73% to reform tertiary education systems to develop such skills, Middle East & North Africa 62% and how to improve learning at pre-primary and primary South Asia 75% levels. High-Income* 47% z Promoting gender equality. The companion piece to the 2012 World Development Report, Getting to Equal: * High-income countries are OECD countries (excluding Chile, Mexico, Republic of Korea, and Turkey, which are included in World Bank regions) as well as Kuwait, Oman, and Singapore. Promoting Gender Equality through Human Development, highlights gaps in education for marginalized populations and details proven interventions that address equality. The purpose of the April 2012 Gender Colloquium is to bring together thinkers, researchers, and practitioners to C. Strengthening Bank staff capacities discuss ways to address multiple sources of educational A comprehensive World Bank education staff learning disadvantage, with a focus on gender. program will be launched on May 2, 2012. The program will support education staff to strengthen their capacity to implement z Measuring results. The Bank is stepping up its impact the new education strategy and develop cutting-edge knowledge evaluations of projects as a way to help inform policymaking and skills in technical and operational topics in order to deliver and increase resource effectiveness. For example, a high quality advice and services to country partners. recent study in Liberia showed higher early grade reading * Formerly System Assessment and Benchmarking for Education Results.