The World Bank and the knowledge revolution

Since 2000, the World Bank has seen higher education as vital to development. This is a change of focus from its advocacy throughout the 1990s, primarily based around basic education linked to the Education for All goals. In that time, research documented higher benefits to developing economies from primary education. Within the Bank, there is now acceptance that the neglect of higher education was misplaced.

This shift comes from the growing belief in a globalised knowledge economy. If economic success comes from participating in this knowledge economy, then developing countries need to improve their ability to participate. The UNESCO/World Bank Task Force on Higher Education states:

Higher education can contribute to economic progress when coupled with other policies and contextual factors

'As knowledge becomes more important to the global economy, so does higher education... The quality of knowledge generated within higher education institutions, and its accessibility to the wider economy, is becoming increasingly critical to national competitiveness.'

A renewed commitment by the World Bank to higher education is welcome. However, the knowledge economy is not a simple reality even in developed countries. Linking the future of higher education with that of the knowledge economy is problematic anywhere, even more so in poorer countries.

India is seen as a country with a strong relationship between successful participation in the knowledge economy and a strong higher education system. Yet, the relationship between educational expansion and economic development has not been so straightforward: the expansion of higher education in India preceded major economic take-off but its effects were constrained by the structure of the economy and industrial policy. Many graduate jobs in India are not the types of knowledge work envisaged for the knowledge economy.

Higher education can contribute to economic progress when coupled with other policies and contextual factors. Branding higher education only as a path to higher incomes is both an impoverishment of higher education's broader meaning and potential and a promise that is likely to remain unfulfilled for many.

Simon McGrath
School of Education, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK
simon.mcgrath@nottingham.ac.uk