The Diffusion of Global Education Policies: Education for All and the World Bank-funded District Primary Education Project in India

• In Event: Rethinking Educational Policy Diffusion, Borrowing and Transfer

Proposal

Rationale, purpose and significance of the study

This paper examines the diffusion of global educational policies in India from a historical perspective by focusing on the genesis and consequences of the World Bank-funded District Primary Education Project (DPEP) implemented following the launch of the Education for All (EFA) initiative at the 1990 World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien. The launch of EFA paved the way for a favourable climate for external aid for education in India (Sadgopal, 2006), despite considerable resistance by governmental and non-governmental stakeholders (Ayyar, 2008; Vaughan, 2013). The DPEP was part of a structural adjustment loan that was set in motion in 1991 in the context of the momentum to put every child into school spurred by the EFA initiative. The DPEP started with pilot projects in 1993 in under-performing states and districts.
By 2000, the project was implemented in 240 districts across 16 states and involved 51.3 million children and 1.1 million teachers (Jalan & Glinskaya, 2003; Porter, 2003). The DPEP has also been viewed critically for having diluted the collective autonomy of teachers, civil society and institutions (Kumar et al., 2001), arguably paving the way for strong state education reforms, such as the revisions of school curricula, rolled out during the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government (Anand & Lall, 2022).

We propose that the DPEP and the decade of the 1990s is important for understanding the leading role played by the World Bank in the standardisation of educational ideas and their impact on the running of a democratic, socially just system of education. The World Bank continues to shape education in India to this day, illustrated by the recently launched “Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States” (STARS) programme that “builds on the long partnership between India and the World Bank (since 1994)…to support the country’s goal of providing ‘Education for All’” (The World Bank, 2021) and takes a similar approach to the DPEP. By examining the history of the World Bank’s role in India and the institutional and discursive shifts entailed by its structural adjustment lending, the study will enhance the understanding of the rise of the World Bank into the most influential shaper of education policy in low-income countries, and contribute to a better understanding of the convergences and tensions between global influences and the political and societal conditions in India pertaining to education, which has implications for the critical evaluation of global development agendas, such as the contemporary Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Methodological and theoretical approach

The study is guided by the following research questions:
1) What was the role of the Jomtien conference and EFA in paving the way for the World Bank’s involvement in educational policy in India?
2) What relationship did the education authorities and civil society in India have with the World Bank – who encouraged the involvement and influence of the World Bank and who resisted it?
3) What were the consequences of the introduction of the DPEP in India – how did it shape the field of education, particularly the state-society relations through education reform over the coming decades?

The data informing this study will be obtained from archival sources collected in the archives of the World Bank and the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration in Delhi; 2) Policy papers and reports by the World Bank, the Government of India, and selected other international and civil society organizations; 3) Approximately 15 open-ended, semi-structured interviews with former officials of the Government of India and the World Bank.

Our analysis of the data will be informed by two main theoretical underpinnings: (1) the perspective of “global governance” of education (Chabbott, 2003; Resnik, 2006) that emphasizes the diffusion of meanings, tools and rationalizing technologies and the tracing of the linkages between education and broader market-liberalizing policy reforms implemented through structural adjustment lending; (2) a postcolonial perspective, viewing global governance through the lens of a “new imperialism” (Tikly, 2004), which captures the tensions between a group of “elite bureaucrats” trained in the technologies and ways of thinking of the World Bank (Mangla, 2018), and parts of civil society, academia and also state officials who resisted the DPEP-led policy transformation, as well as the tensions between “neoliberal globalization” and the cultural dimensions of the postcolonial state (Gupta & Sharma, 2006). By drawing out the connections between education policy events in India around the DPEP during the 1990s and the global governance realm of the World Bank and EFA, this study aims to make a distinctive contribution to the literature on globalisation and global governance of education and enhance our understanding of how the intersections between global and national dynamics of policy-making are historically contingent, with important implications for critical scholarship on the influence of international organizations and global agendas such as the SDGs. The proposal connects with the theme of CIES 2024 with its attention to voices of resistance against the influence of the World Bank and structural adjustment loans in India.

Authors

• Maren Elfert, King's College London

• Mili Mili, King's College London