The World Bank and Educational Reform in Indonesia

Abstract

This chapter examines World Bank publications, including publicized reports and widely disseminated policy statements like the World Development Reports, as well as the plans and appraisals of two specific operations in Indonesia. Based on this examination, the author suggests that characterizations which emphasize the Bank's intransigence or celebrate its responsiveness fail to provide a satisfactory description of country-level education policy evolution. The chapter begins with two of the major theoretical frameworks that have been used to study the Bank's work in education. This is followed by a summary of the evolution of the Bank's involvement in education at the international level. The third part of this chapter analyzes two educational reforms that the World Bank has promoted in Indonesia in the last 10 years – programs advancing vocational education and decentralization – and examines how these priorities have been affected by local context and demands and shifts in the global discourse on education. The author concludes that the World Bank's role in the diffusion of education reform is best understood from a world culture perspective but that its interests – and the interests of its primary shareholders – are advanced in particularly opportune moments like democratic transitions.

Citation

Sensenig, V.J. (2012), "The World Bank and Educational Reform in Indonesia", Collins, C.S. and Wiseman, A.W. (Ed.) Education Strategy in the Developing World: Revising the World Bank's Education Policy (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 395-421. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2012)0000016021