World Development Report: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise
September 26, 2017
The report focuses entirely on education for the first time, and contains a set of educational indicators.
The focus is on education, because, in times of rapid economic and social change, education is considered even more crucial. The best way to prepare children and young people for the future is to place their learning at the center.
The report examines four themes:
The promise of education;
The need to shed light on learning;
How schools do good work for learners;
How systems work for learning.
The report makes a distinction between 'schooling' and 'learning; and the report states that 'schooling' without 'learning' is not only a missed opportunity, but a major injustice.
The report talks about a 'learning crisis', with three important dimensions:
A first dimension is the weak learning results themselves: low levels, high inequality, slow progress;
A second dimension lies with the immediate causes: children are not prepared to learn; teachers are often not sufficiently competent or motivated to teach efficiently; input often does not reach the classroom, and thus has an effect on learning; Finally, weak management and weak governance undermine the quality of schools. Schools are failing learners.
A third dimension involves deeper systemic causes. Systems are failing schools.
Three policy actions are proposed to tackle this crisis:
Assess learning, make it a serious goal;
Act on evidence, to make schools 'work' for all learners;
Align the actors to make the whole system 'work' for learning.