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The Task Force

The Task Force on Higher Education andSociety was convened by the World Bank andUNESCO to bring together experts from 13countries for the purpose of exploring thefuture of higher education in the developingworld.

Based on research and intensive discussionand hearings conducted over a two-year pe-riod, the Task Force has concluded that, with-out more and better higher education, devel-oping countries will find it increasinglydifficult to benefit from the global knowledge-based economy.

The Task Force has attempted to clarify thearguments for higher education development,especially from the standpoint of publicpolicymakers and the international commu-nity. It has also diagnosed specific problemsthat are common across the developingworld—home to more than 80 percent of theworld’s population—and suggested potentialsolutions. Higher Education in Developing Coun-tries: Peril and Promise is split into six chapters,which address:

• higher education’s long-standing problemsand the new realities it faces;

• the nature of the public interest in highereducation;

• the issue of how focusing on higher educa-tion as a system will yield the benefits ofplanned diversification;

• the need to improve standards of gover-nance;

• the particularly acute requirement for bet-ter science and technology education; and

• a call to develop imaginative general edu-cation curricula for certain students.

Peril and Promise

The world economy is changing as knowledgesupplants physical capital as the source ofpresent (and future) wealth. Technology isdriving much of this process, with informa-tion technology, biotechnology, and otherinnovations leading to remarkable changes inthe way we live and work.

As knowledge becomes more important, sodoes higher education. Countries need toeducate more of their young people to ahigher standard—a degree is now a basicqualification for many skilled jobs. The qual-ity of knowledge generated within highereducation institutions, and its availability tothe wider economy, is becoming increasinglycritical to national competitiveness.

Overview

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.H.G. Wells, The Outline of History

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This poses a serious challenge to the devel-oping world. Since the 1980s, many nationalgovernments and international donors haveassigned higher education a relatively low pri-ority. Narrow—and, in our view, misleading—economic analysis has contributed to the viewthat public investment in universities and col-leges brings meager returns compared toinvestment in primary and secondary schools,and that higher education magnifies incomeinequality.

As a result, higher education systems indeveloping countries are under great strain.They are chronically underfunded, but faceescalating demand—approximately half oftoday’s higher education students live in thedeveloping world. Faculty are often under-qualified, lack motivation, and are poorly re-warded. Students are poorly taught and cur-ricula underdeveloped. Developed countries,meanwhile, are constantly raising the stakes.Quite simply, many developing countries willneed to work much harder just to maintaintheir position, let alone catch up. There arenotable exceptions, but currently, across mostof the developing world, the potential ofhigher education to promote development isbeing realized only marginally.

Wider Focus

The Task Force is united in the belief thaturgent action to expand the quantity andimprove the quality of higher education indeveloping countries should be a top devel-opment priority. Developing countries needhigher education to:

• provide increasing numbers of students,especially those from disadvantaged back-grounds, with specialized skills, becausespecialists are increasingly in demand in allsectors of the world economy;

• produce a body of students with a generaleducation that encourages flexibility andinnovation, thus allowing the continual re-newal of economic and social structures rel-evant to a fast-changing world;

• teach students not just what is currentlyknown, but also how to keep their knowl-edge up to date, so that they will be able torefresh their skills as the economic environ-ment changes; and

• increase the amount and quality of in-coun-try research, thus allowing the developingworld to select, absorb, and create newknowledge more efficiently and rapidlythan it currently does.

The Task Force recognizes that there are manydifficulties in achieving these aims, includingthe plethora of competing demands for pub-lic money. Action, therefore, will need creativ-ity and persistence. A new vision of whathigher education can achieve is required,combined with better planning and higherstandards of management. The strengths ofall players—public and private—must be used,with the international community at lastemerging to provide strong and coordinatedsupport and leadership in this critical area.

System Focus

The Task Force recommends that each devel-oping country make it a national priority todebate and determine what it can realisticallyexpect its higher education system to deliver.The debate must be informed by historicaland comparative knowledge about the con-tribution of higher education to social, eco-nomic, and political development—but alsoshould take clear account of the challengesthe future will bring. It should establish foreach higher education system clear goals thatpolicymakers can use to view the higher edu-

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cation system as a whole, determining whateach part can contribute to the public good.

This kind of holistic analysis of higher edu-cation systems has rarely been attempted. Itdoes not mean reverting to centrally plannedsystems—far from it. Instead, it offers the abil-ity to balance strategic direction with the di-versity now found in higher education systemsacross the developing world. This diversifica-tion—a reaction to increased demand—hasbrought new providers (especially from theprivate sector) into the system and encour-aged new types of institutions to emerge. Itpromises increased competition and, ulti-mately, improved quality.

Unfortunately, this promise will not be de-livered if diversification continues to be cha-otic and unplanned. Players, new and old, willthrive only in higher education systems thatdevelop core qualities. These qualities in-clude:

• sufficient autonomy, with governments pro-viding clear supervision, while avoiding day-to-day management;

• explicit stratification, allowing institutionsto play to their strengths and serve differ-ent needs, while competing for funding,faculty, and students;

• cooperation as well as competition,whereby human and physical capital, as wellas knowledge and ideas, can be profitablyshared within the system, creating, for ex-ample, a “learning commons” where facili-ties—computers, libraries, and laborato-ries—are open to all students; and

• increased openness, encouraging highereducation institutions to develop knowl-edge- (and revenue-) sharing links withbusiness and to deepen the dialogue withsociety that will lead to stronger democracyand more resilient nation states.

On its own, the market will certainly not de-vise this kind of system. Markets require profitand this can crowd out important educationalduties and opportunities. Basic sciences andthe humanities, for example, are essential fornational development. They are likely to beunderfunded, unless they are actively encour-aged by leaders in education who have theresources to realize this vision.

Governments need to develop a new roleas supervisors, rather than directors, of highereducation. They should concentrate on estab-lishing the parameters within which successcan be achieved, while allowing specific solu-tions to emerge from the creativity of highereducation professionals.

Practical Solutions

The Task Force has identified a number ofareas where immediate, practical action isneeded. These include:

• funding—the Task Force suggests a mixedfunding model to maximize the financialinput of the private sector, philanthropicindividuals and institutions, and students.It also calls for more consistent and pro-ductive public funding mechanisms.

• resources—the Task Force makes practicalsuggestions for the more effective use ofphysical and human capital, including anurgent plea for access to the new technolo-gies needed to connect developing coun-tries to the global intellectual mainstream.

• governance—the Task Force proposes a setof principles of good governance (acknowl-edged by many as the central problem fac-ing higher education in developing coun-tries) and discusses tools that promote theirimplementation; better management willlead to the more effective deployment oflimited resources.

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Figure 1

Tertiary Enrollment Ratios, 1995

This map shows the variation in tertiary gross enrollment ratios across the countries of the world. In general, people in countries that aremore developed economically are more likely to be enrolled in higher education. Nevertheless, there are also regional trends, andnumerous countries have different enrollment ratios than might be expected on the basis of per-capita income.

Cape Verde

Cayman Is. (UK)

Bermuda (UK)

American Samoa (US)

Aruba (Neth)

Channel Is. (UK)

Faeroe Is. (Den)

Isle of Man (UK)

Gibraltar (UK)

French Polynesia

Puerto Rico (US)US Virgin Is. (US)

Neth. Antilles (Neth)

Guadeloupe (Fr)Martinique (Fr)

Monaco

BurkinaFaso

DominicanRepublic St. Kitts and Nevis

Antigua and BarbudaDominicaSt. LuciaSt. Vincent and the Grenadines

GrenadaTrinidad and Tobago

Barbados

Samoa

TongaFiji

Kiribati

HaitiJamaica

Cuba

The Bahamas

Mexico

Panama

Costa RicaNicaragua

HondurasEl Salvador

GuatemalaBelize

Colombia

GuyanaSuriname

Venezuela

Ecuador

Peru Brazil

Bolivia

Paraguay

ChileArgentina

Uruguay

Russian

MoroccoTunisia

AlgeriaFormerSpanishSahara

MauritaniaMali

SenegalThe GambiaGuinea-Bissau Guinea

Sierra Leone

Liberia

Côted’Ivoire

GhanaTogo

Benin

Niger

Nigeria

CameEquatorial Guinea

São Tomé and PríncipeGabo

N

Cze

Slovenia

United States

Canada

Bosnia and Herz

Croatia

F.R. of Yugos(Serb./M

Iceland

Greenland(Den)

Norway

Swed

UnitedKingdom

Ireland

Denmark

Netherlands

GermanyBelgium

France

Spain

Portugal

LuxembourgLiechtensteinSwitzerland

Andorra

Austria

Italy

French Guiana (Fr)

This map was produced by theMap Design Unit of The World Bank.The boundaries, colors, denominationsand any other information shown onthis map do not imply, on the part ofThe World Bank Group, any judgmenton the legal status of any territory, orany endorsement or acceptance ofsuch boundaries.

≤ 5%

> 5% and ≤ 15%

> 15% and ≤ 35%

> 35% and ≤ 50%

> 50%

No Data

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Mayotte (Fr)

Guam (US)

Northern Mariana Is. (US)

Reunion (Fr)

Palau

Federated States of Micronesia Marshall Islands

Nauru Kiribati

SolomonIslands

Tuvalu

Vanuatu Fiji

EstoniaLatvia

Lithuania

Poland

Fed.

Belarus

UkraineMoldova

RomaniaBulgaria

Malta

Libya A.R. ofEgypt

SudanChad

eroon

Central AfricanRepublic

nCongo

Angola

Dem.Rep.ofCongo

Eritrea

Djibouti

Ethiopia

Somalia

KenyaUganda

Rwanda

BurundiTanzania

ZambiaMalawi

MozambiqueZimbabwe

BotswanaNamibia

Swaziland

LesothoSouthAfrica

Madagascar Mauritius

Seychelles

Comoros

Rep. ofYemen

Oman

United ArabEmirates

QatarBahrain

SaudiArabia

KuwaitWest Bank and Gaza Jordan

Lebanon

SyrianA.R.Cyprus

IraqI.R. of Iran

Turkey

Azerbaijan

ArmeniaGeorgia

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Kazakhstan

Afghanistan

Tajikistan

KyrgyzRep.

Pakistan

India

BhutanNepal

Bangladesh

Myanmar

SriLanka

Maldives

Thailand

LaoP.D.R.

Vietnam

Cambodia

Singapore

Malaysia

Philippines

Papua New GuineaIndonesia

Rep.ofKorea

Dem.People’sRep.of Korea

Mongolia

China

Russian Federation

IBRD 30716 JANUARY 2000

East Timor

ech Rep.

Hungary

Albania

FYR Macedonia

Slovak Rep.

zeg.

a

laviaMont.)

den Finland

a

y

Japan

Australia

NewZealand

Greece

NewCaledonia

(Fr)

NewCaledonia

(Fr)

Mayotte (Fr)

Guam (US)

Northern Mariana Is. (US)

Reunion (Fr)

Monaco

Palau

Federated States of Micronesia Marshall Islands

Nauru Kiribati

SolomonIslands

Tuvalu

Vanuatu Fiji

EstoniaLatvia

Lithuania

Poland

Russian Fed.

Belarus

UkraineMoldova

RomaniaBulgaria

MaltaTunisia

Algeria

Togo

Benin

Niger

Nigeria

Libya A.R. ofEgypt

SudanChad

Cameroon

Central AfricanRepublic

GabonCongo

Angola

Dem.Rep.ofCongo

Eritrea

Djibouti

Ethiopia

Somalia

KenyaUganda

Rwanda

BurundiTanzania

ZambiaMalawi

MozambiqueZimbabwe

BotswanaNamibia

Swaziland

LesothoSouthAfrica

Madagascar Mauritius

Seychelles

Comoros

Rep. ofYemen

Oman

United ArabEmirates

QatarBahrain

SaudiArabia

KuwaitWest Bank and Gaza

Jordan

LebanonIsrael

SyrianA.R.Cyprus

IraqI.R. of Iran

Turkey

Azerbaijan

ArmeniaGeorgia

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Kazakhstan

Afghanistan

Tajikistan

KyrgyzRep.

Pakistan

India

BhutanNepal

Bangladesh

Myanmar

SriLanka

Maldives

Thailand

LaoP.D.R.

Vietnam

Cambodia

Singapore

Malaysia

Philippines

Papua New GuineaIndonesia

Rep.ofKorea

Dem.People’sRep.of Korea

Mongolia

China

Russian Federation

IBRD 30716 JANUARY 2000

East Timor

Czech Rep.

Hungary

Albania

FYR Macedonia

Slovak Rep.Slovenia

Bosnia and Herzeg.

Croatia

F.R. of Yugoslavia(Serb./Mont.)

Norway

Sweden Finland

Denmark

GermanyBelgium

France

Austria

Italy

Japan

Australia

NewZealand

Greece

14

• curriculum development, especially in twocontrasting areas, science and technology,and general education—the Task Force be-lieves that, in the knowledge economy,highly trained specialists and broadly edu-cated generalists will be at a premium, andboth will need to be educated more flex-ibly so that they continue to learn as theirenvironment develops.

The Way Forward

Higher Education in Developing Countries: Periland Promise does not offer a universal blue-print for reforming higher education systems,but it does provide a starting point for action.The greatest desire of the Task Force is to cata-lyze dialogue in countries around the world.While the benefits of higher education con-tinue to rise, the costs of being left behindare also growing. Higher education is nolonger a luxury: it is essential to national so-cial and economic development.