Primary

The author explores how schools change in response to increased competition generated by voucher programs in Chile. A unique data set provides information on teacher demographics and labor market characteristics, as well as teachers' perceptions of school management. When teacher data are matched with school-level data on student achievement using a national assessment data set (SIMCE), some teacher and school characteristics affect student performance, but a great deal of unexplained variance among sectors remains important in predicting student outcomes.

The report presents the macroeconomic setting, and fiscal developments in the 1990s in Croatia, a country facing an unparalleled opportunity towards sustainable growth, and integration into the European Union. Nonetheless, the country needs to sustain macroeconomic stabilization, and improve the investment climate. To this effect, public sector reform needs to be oriented to diminish the size of the state, and reduce the fiscal deficit to sustain macroeconomic stability in the medium term.

Under-nutrition, and micronutrient deficiencies are critical issues for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Failure to target programs to address the impact of malnutrition, has led to high rates of under-nutrition, and iron and iodine deficiencies.

The authors analyze the relationship between orphan status, household wealth, and child school enrollment using data collected in the 1990s from 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Latin America and Caribbean, and one country in Southeast Asia. The findings point to considerable diversity-so much so that generalizations are not possible. While there are some examples of large differentials in enrollment by orphan status, in the majority of cases the orphan enrollment gap is dwarfed by the gap between children from richer and poorer households.

This report provides the framework for the World Bank's support for education.

This document serves two purposes, as a practical training manual for Bank staff, Education planners, and stakeholders, in the use of the Education-AIDS model in a particular country to assist with educational planning in the face of HIV/AIDS; and, as an introduction to the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, the impact it has on the education sector, its scale, and how can it be captured empirically by the Education-AIDS model.

The conference was organized in response to the increasing realization that globalization, and the growth of the knowledge-based economy, pose economic and technological challenges to education systems worldwide. The economic importance of knowledge and innovation is increasing, along with reliance on technology and demand for both, traditional skills and new competencies. People therefore need access to learning on an on-going, lifelong basis, which in turn requires a stronger alignment of institutions and policies to create high performance, learner-driven systems.

The study addresses four major concerns within the Bank's Economic Restructuring Program in Karnataka: 1) identifying the priority issues facing the education sector; 2) indicating possible areas for expenditure reform, to improve the efficiency, and equity of public spending in education; 3) identifying measures to strengthen the effectiveness of public expenditure; and, 4) assessing the resource requirements for school education.

Information and communication technologies provide the basis for increasing and applying knowledge in the private and public sectors. Countries with strong information infrastructures that employ innovative information technology applications, have many advantages for sustained economic growth and social development. This book is, primarily, a business strategy which explains the World Bank's role in the development of information infrastructure.

This paper examines the patterns and determinants of inequities between indigenous and non-indigenous students in Bolivia primary schools, using a 1997 survey of third and sixth grades. Three key questions are posed in the empirical analysis: (i) How are family and school characteristics distributed across indigenous and non-indigenous students and other groups, and especially between girls and boys; (ii) How is academic achievement distributed across these groups, and again, across girls and boys; and (iii) What are the determinants of inequities in achievement?