Starting in the fall of 1997, the World Bank Institute organized a learning program on Intergovernmental Roles in the Delivery of Education Services in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Bulgaria and Albania joined in 1998. The program aimed to help build analytical capacity to...

The prospects for educational development are excellent in Madagascar, in light of the increasingly favorable, policy environment for the sector. Public spending for education, relative to the gross domestic product declined in the 90s, coinciding with a five-fold rise in the country's interest...

The Millennium Development Goals aim for universal primary education by 2015 and gender equality in enrolments at all levels of education. The Education for All (EFA) initiative lays out a strategy for achieving these goals. The Bank's own strategy stresses the school quality aspects of EFA,...

Peru has reached a crossroads for education policy at the beginning of the 21st century. The status quo reflects major accomplishments. One direction for policy would, therefore, involve useful but relatively limited improvements in the current situation. This direction, however, may prove...

Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, Armenia had a highly developed and expensive education system, matching the needs of the command economy. The country is now facing a challenge to sustain universal coverage and performance standards in primary-secondary education with a small fraction of...