Education

Promoting education is central to the Bank’s mission of poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The World Bank is the world’s largest external financier of education.

In supporting education the Bank has a dual focus to:

• help countries achieve universal primary education and;
• build the skills imparted at the secondary and tertiary levels, which are vital to competing in today’s advanced and knowledge-driven global markets.

Past Events

June 2008, WB-EC Panel Discussion the Importance of Education Quality to Inclusive Development

Schooling has not delivered fully on its promise as the driver of economic success and development.  Expanding school attainment has been a necessary but not sufficient factor in guaranteeing better economic conditions.  Increasingly it has become clear that what has been missing is attention to the quality of education - ensuring that students actually learn.  A recent World Bank report on Education Quality and Economic Growth concludes that the educational quality in developing countries is much worse than educational quantity (school enrollment and attainment), a picture already quite bleak.  Following the above points the World Bank and the EC organized a panel discussion to examine how to strengethen education quality in development cooperation, for more information please click here