Publication

This Public Expenditure Review (PER) is the result of a collaboration among the World Bank Group, and Lesotho’s Ministries of Education and Finance, and is designed to inform Lesotho’s effort in expanding access to quality education services, while operating in a highly fiscally constraint environment. Although education spending is one of the highest in the world as a percentage of GDP (13.5 percent of GDP) and universal access to primary education enshrined in law, poor educational outcomes persist across the country.

The vocational education and training (VET) school study's purpose was to describe the current status of secondary VET schools in the Prešov region, identify areas preventing schools from achieving a higher quality of education, and pinpoint areas for school improvement. The main objective is to conduct an assessment of employers and secondary VET schools and work with the Prešov region education department to more effectively pursue European Union (EU) structural funds to implement needed changes in line with study findings.

This note was prepared within the ASA project, the objective of which was is to provide knowledge and advisory support to the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and to Russian regional universities on critical topics for higher education development. To implement this objective several knowledge-sharing activities were conducted for the Ministry and regional universities to support the implementation of a new National Project ‘Education’, using the most relevant and up to date international experience in higher education development.

In recent decades, Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have improved school enrollment substantially. While children are performing better on numeracy than literacy in primary school, PI Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) results show children are falling behind as they progress. From 2009 to 2012, the World Bank, with funding from the education for all - fast track initiative (EFA-FTI) and the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, conducted a number of analytical pieces in the Pacific to better understand the factors impacting on poor learning outcomes of students.

Between 2015 and 2017, two small-scale programs showed how to improve the school readiness and early literacy of children. The first program provided support to communities to setup and run playgroups for children aged 0 to 5 and their caregivers, and increased school readiness by an additional 28 percent of what a child usually gains between ages 3 and 4.

Aligned with the message of the World Bank’s 2018 World Development Report: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise, ‘Every Learner Matters’ argues that for children with disabilities, the focus needs to shift from school access to prioritizing learning. This paper examines education systems and the importance of measuring learning achievement for children with disabilities to respond appropriately to the needs of students.

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Nepal is estimated at 7.1 percent in FY2019, driven mainly by the service and agriculture sectors. The service sector is likely to grow by 7.5 percent due to a boost in the retail, hotel, and restaurant subsectors, driven by an uptick in tourist arrivals and remittance-fueled private consumption. Agriculture is estimated to grow by 5 percent in FY2019, well above its 30-year average of 3.1 percent, due to good monsoons, increased commercialization, availability of fertilizers and seeds, and improved irrigation facilities.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the youngest population of any region of the world, and that growing working-age population represents a major opportunity to reduce poverty and increase shared prosperity. But the region’s workforce is the least skilled in the world, constraining economic prospects. Despite economic growth, declining poverty, and investments in skills-building, too many students in too many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are not acquiring the foundational skills they need to thrive and prosper in an increasingly competitive global economy.

Adolescent girls and young women are a critical group for India and the state of Jharkhand; a group with unmet aspirations and tremendous potential to contribute to the growth and development of the state. Their stark vulnerabilities point to an urgent need for comprehensive empowering interventions, focused on education and employment.

Ukraine has embarked on an ambitious reform agenda with great potential to transform and reposition the education system as a driver for economic growth and social prosperity. The reforms introduced following the Euromaidan Revolution have generated great optimism by decentralizing and democratizing the education system, while laying the foundations for greater alignment and integration with European norms and standards in education. Despite Ukraine's impressive foundations in and history of education, the system appears misaligned with the changing needs of the economy and the population.