Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.

This booklet focuses on the broad role of education in national development in Asia. It emphasizes trends, issues, and envisaged problems within education systems in the relations between education and the environment. The foremost concerns are the implications for policy making and planning.

Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world's poorest countries.

This book gives a riveting account of the higher education advancements made in five East African countries, each presenting unique characteristics. While some of the counties enjoyed relative calm throughout their years of growth and development, others have endured a turbulent past marked by civil war, coups and other forms of unrest, including one of the most atrocious genocide events ever recorded in the history of mankind. It is a known fact that the past defines the present and describes the future. The book specifically tracks the historical development of teacher education, technical and vocational education and training, and university education in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. The extensive research and up-to-date accounts provide a rich overview of tertiary education in the five countries, with candid reviews of the past, the current situation and perspectives on the future. The book is a refreshing addition to the books of history and education, and a must-read for students, professionals, and policy makers in the field of higher education, as well as scholars of history.

Sub-Saharan Africa seems to be forgotten in the post-cold war era. But Kaoru Ishikawa's analysis of Africa's history and its political and economic development suggests that a brighter future is in prospect for the nations of Africa. The African nations hosted dynamic societies prior to the slave trade era, and many of the obstacles to their future prosperity and dynamism have been removed. The focus of the book is on how African countries and the international community beyond Africa can work together to realise this potential and build on recent improvements, notably in health and the position of women in society. The ability of South Africa - no longer an international pariah to be a locomotive for growth is assessed.