Institutionalizing International Influence

Education is perhaps the most public of public policies. Yet most of the major studies of education, explicitly commissioned to guide policy decisions, have very limited circulation. Designated “confidential” or “restricted,” Africa's education sector studies are generally available only to the commissioning agency and a few government officials. The volume of theses studies, their central role in the aid relationship, and thereby their influence on objectives and priorities in African education is the most visible manifestation of the evolution of the international role in education: the institutionalization of international influence. Individually, none of these studies, or perhaps even the aid programs that spawned them, is likely to prove very consequential over the longer term. But as a group, these studies outline and provide insights into changing patterns of international influence in education. In this discussion the author traces that evolution briefly, concerned especially with the experiences of the world's poorer countries and particularly those that became independent during the second half of the twentieth century.