Learning for All : Investing in People's Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development

World Bank

Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO EDUCATION;    DEVELOPMENT INVESTMENT;    ECONOMIC GROWTH;    EDUCATION;    EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES;   

RP-ID  :  64959

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Education is fundamental to developmentand growth. Access to education, which is a basic humanright enshrined in the universal declaration of human rightsand the United Nations Convention on the rights of thechild, is also a strategic development investment. The humanmind makes possible all other development achievements, fromhealth advances and agricultural innovation toinfrastructure construction and private sector growth. Fordeveloping countries to reap these benefits fully both bylearning from the stock of global ideas and throughinnovation they need to unleash the potential of the humanmind. And there is no better tool for doing so thaneducation. The new strategy focuses on learning for a simplereason: growth, development, and poverty reduction depend onthe knowledge and skills that people acquire, not the numberof years that they sit in a classroom. At the individuallevel, while a diploma may open doors to employment, it is aworker's skills that determine his or her productivityand ability to adapt to new technologies and opportunities.Knowledge and skills also contribute to an individual'sability to have a healthy and educated family and engage incivic life. At the societal level, recent research showsthat the level of skills in a workforce as measured byperformance on international student assessments such as theProgram for International Student Assessment (PISA) and theTrends in International Mathematics and Science Study(TIMSS) predicts economic growth rates far better than doaverage schooling levels. For example, an increase of onestandard deviation in student reading and math scores(roughly equivalent to improving a country'sperformance ranking from the median to the top 15 percent)is associated with a very large increase of 2 percentagepoints in annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capitagrowth. To achieve learning for all, the World Bank Groupwill channel its efforts in education in two strategicdirections: reforming education systems at the country leveland building a high-quality knowledge base for educationreforms at the global level.