Educational program planning

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The influence of supranational organizations on educational programme planning in the Least Developed Countries: The case of Nepal

Kapil Dev Regmi1

Published online: 26 July 2015 � UNESCO IBE 2015

Abstract Amidst growing criticisms of global financial institutions, primarily the World Bank, this article explores their influence on educational programme planning in some of

the impoverished nations known as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The domi-

nation of these institutions originates not only from their monetary power but also from the

hegemonic ideas they spread: the theory of human capital and the technical-rational model

have long guided educational programme planning. In the context of increasing control of

educational governance by supranational organizations, this article explores how these

ideologies are constraining the capacities of poor nations to make sovereign decisions and

set their own educational goals and priorities. Nepal provides a special case. In recent

decades it has faced policy changes because of two sets of conditions: those imposed by the

World Bank and those resulting from protracted political instability following 10 years of

armed conflict.

Keywords Supranational organizations � World Bank � Programme planning � Human capital theory � Technical-rational model � Least Developed Countries � Nepal

The United Nations (UN 2008) has identified 49 countries—deemed the ‘‘Least Developed

Countries’’ (LDCs) and mostly concentrated in Asia and Africa—as having the weakest

gross domestic production, the lowest achievement in health and literacy indicators, and

the least ability to cope with economic shocks and natural disasters. Perpetuated poverty,

The author would like to thank Tom Sork, University of British Columbia, for his feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. Acknowledgements also go to anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and to Simona Popa for her editorial work on the article.

& Kapil Dev Regmi kapil.regmi@alumni.ubc.ca

1 Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia, 2044 Lower Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada

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Prospects (2015) 45:501–514 DOI 10.1007/s11125-015-9352-3

which the people of these nations have endured for several decades, is the major cause of

these problems. Halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty—that is, living

on less than US$ 1.25 per day—was the first of the 8 Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) set in 2000, to be achieved by 2015. This goal was achieved in 2012, but that

achievement has had almost no effect on the LDCs. The world reached this global target

primarily because some advanced developing countries like Brazil, China, and India made

great progress (UNDP 2013). Today, about 12% of the world’s people reside in the LDCs,

but more than 53% of that group live in extreme poverty (UN 2013). Studies show ‘‘a

strong association between armed conflict, poverty and underdevelopment’’ (Cortez and

Kim 2012, p. 1). Cortez and Kim have further found that 23 LDCs were affected by conflict

in 2010, which lead them to posit a ‘‘correlation between the emergence and recurrence of

conflict and having the LDC status’’ (p. 3).

Even though the socioeconomic gap between the developed countries and the advanced

developing countries is decreasing, the status of the LDCs has not changed since this

category was introduced in the early 1970s (UN 2013). What are the causes of poverty and

associated problems in the LDCs? Why are these countries lagging behind in many

development indicators such as health, literacy, and poverty reduction? Answers to these

questions are not simple. Historical analysis of international development shows that

governments and intergovernmental organizations have made several attempts to solve

these problems. Especially since World War II, some supranational organizations such as

the UN and the World Bank (‘‘the Bank’’) have intervened significantly in the LDCs. In

this article, I focus on the Bank’s influence on the field of educational programme

planning.

In considering educational issues, especially of poor countries, the World Bank is of

concern because of its financial power as a global bank. It has become ‘‘the largest

multilateral investor’’ in education in the developing countries (Mundy and Menashy 2014,

p. 417). Since 1962, it has ‘‘invested $69 billion globally in education via more than 1,500

projects’’ (World Bank 2011, p. 1). It considers education a good arena for investment and

provides educational loans to developing nations to enhance economic development.

However, contradictions are rife between the rhetoric and the realities of the Bank’s

intervention in the LDCs. Mundy and Menashy (2014), who analyzed the activities of the

Bank’s International Finance Corporation (a multilateral investor in private education),

claim that the Bank’s educational investments are not targeted toward alleviating poverty

in the LDCs.

Nepal is one of the Asian LDCs. Its economy depends largely on financial assistance

from bilateral and multilateral agencies. With the Primary Education Project (1984–1992),

the World Bank, along with its ally the International Monetary Fund (IMF), imposed the

Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). Following that agreement, Nepal has had to

change its educational policies and programmes to meet conditions imposed by these

financial institutions (Carney and Bista 2009; Rappleye 2009). The Basic Primary Edu-

cation Project (1993–2003) and the Community School Support Project (2003–2008), both

primarily funded and supported by the Bank, evidence the Bank’s blatant interventions in

Nepalese educational programme planning. For the current School Sector Reform Pro-

gramme (2009–2016), the Bank has committed to provide US$ 45 million, almost half of

the estimated US$ 96 million pooling budget for Fiscal Year 2014–15 (World Bank 2014).

It is yet to be seen whether, or how, these commitments may differ from the Bank’s past

imposition of loan conditions.

With a yearly per capita income of about US$ 350 and more than half of its 27.8 million

people living on less than US$ 2 per day, Nepal faces several challenges. A decade of

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armed conflict (1996–2006) and protracted political instability have made it a vulnerable

country—and an illustrative case to explore exogenous influences on the LDCs. Although

over 50 bilateral and multilateral donor agencies have worked actively in Nepal over the

last four decades, studies find no substantial achievement during that period in terms of

reducing the illiteracy, poverty, and many other problems common to all the LDCs.

Analyzing major policy documents of the World Bank as well as recent scholarly

publications, I make two arguments in this article. First, in the context of shifting edu-

cational governance from national to supranational forces, the Bank’s influence on LDCs’

educational programme planning is increasing. Second, a major reason for this influence is

the ideology underlying ‘‘human-capital’’ theory and the ‘‘technical-rational’’ model—

which work as hegemonic principles to shape all the major decisions of educational

planners working in both national and supranational spaces.

Programme planning

Several theories inform educational programme planning. My exploration of the genealogy

of programme planning shows that the technical-rational model—a dominant planning

model that emerged during the 1930s—has a strong theoretical and philosophical foun-

dation, based mainly in behaviourism (a psychological theory of learning) and positivism

(a philosophy that developed in natural science but has had a strong impact on social

science research). For example, the books Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction

(Tyler 1949) and The Modern Practice of Adult Education: Pedagogy versus Andragogy

(Knowles 1970)—both following the technical-rational model—became for a long time the

epitomic volumes for programme planning in the field of adult education (Sork 2000;

Wilson and Cervero 1997).

When the technical-rational model was gaining momentum in North America and

Europe, some leaders interested in international development were seeking genuinely

supportive ways to intervene in developing nations recently liberated from colonization.

During the late 1940s, ‘‘international assistance’’, ‘‘altruism’’, and ‘‘philanthropy’’ con-

stituted part of the common jargon in the global sociopolitical arena. Interested parties set

up many national, international, and supranational organizations. For example, many

countries together established the United Nations (1945), UNESCO (1946), and the OECD

(1948) to enhance international cooperation and assistance. In addition, several developed

countries not only started to provide donations after late 1940s to Third World countries—

most of them now identified as LDCs—but also to set up international nongovernment

organizations (INGOs) for channeling development assistance. For instance, the United

States and Soviet Union, respectively, devised two mega plans—the Marshall Plan and the

Molotov Plan.

International communities adopted various approaches to enhance development in Third

World countries, but almost all of them focused on educational programmes (McNeely

1995). Besides INGOs, academic institutions were also interested in developing countries

in the name of ‘‘comparative education’’. During the late 1950s to 1960s, many of the

strongest North American academic centres had an ‘‘explicit focus on educational planning

in and for developing nations’’ (Farrell 1997, p. 277). Examples include the Centre for the

Study of Education and Development at Harvard, the Centre for Development Education at

Syracuse, the Comparative Education Centre at Chicago, and the Stanford International

and Development Education Centre (Farrell 1997). The first educational programme

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planning commission in Nepal—the National Education Planning Commission (NEPC)—

was set up in 1954 under the leadership of Hugh B. Wood, a US scholar and commission

advisor from the University of Oregon, under the auspices of the United States Overseas

Mission (USOM, now known as USAID).

Human capital and technical-rational models

In the search for a solution to the basic planning problems in education, different

approaches proliferated. They included social demands, costs-benefits, workforce plan-

ning, indicative planning, and manpower requirements (Farrell 1997; Lewin 2008). Among

these approaches, the technical-rational model became dominant because some of its

philosophical tenets concurred with those in the history of programme planning, such as

the paradigmatic overlap between human-capital theory and technical-rational traditions.

The technical-rational model prescribes ‘‘a scientifically-based procedural logic of

completing certain planning tasks’’ in the form of guiding principles for solving such

planning problems as assessing needs, defining objectives, developing content, choosing

instructional methods, and evaluating results (Wilson and Cervero 1997, p. 85). Similarly,

human capital theory works as a powerful tool to analyze labour markets, wage deter-

mination, economic growth, and expenditure on health (Woodhall 1997). One of the major

objectives of human capital theory is ‘‘to discover whether it is more profitable to invest in

men and women or machines’’ by comparing the rates of returns to investment in human

and in physical capital (Woodhall 1997, p. 220). The crux of this theory is that ‘‘individuals

and society derive economic benefits from investments in people’’ (Sweetland 1996,

p. 351). In both theories, technical procedures determine the calculations of investment in

and return on education, and the goal of educational planning is to increase the rate of

returns in purely economic terms.

This historical marriage between the ideals of human capital theory and the technical-

rational model made a lasting impact on the field of education and left an unprecedented

legacy in programme planning. The marriage flourished under the auspices of globalization

and neoliberalism and culminated in the worldwide homogenization of educational culture

(Resnik 2006). Writing about Nepal’s Basic and Primary Education Project (BPEP

1993–2003), Erik Winther-Schmidt, a chief technical advisor from Danish International

Development Agency (DANIDA), argued that, pursuing their own agenda, supranational

organizations succeeded in getting some of the best minds in Nepal to incorporate that

culture into ‘‘their own technical-rational intellectual framework’’ (Winther-Schmidt 2011,

p. 61). This implies that the discursive ideologies of the technical-rational model and of

human capital theory were the basis of a superficial consensus between national and

supranational programme planners.

Supranational organizations such as the OECD and World Bank, which emerged as

leading international development institutions, took human capital theory and the techni-

cal-rational model for granted. They saw education as a tool for strengthening the econ-

omy. The global educational model developed in such a context is premised on education

to develop human capital and a knowledge-based economy, and encourage lifelong

learning. In turn, these characteristics of world education culture strengthened the ideo-

logical influence of human capital theory. The proponents of this theory—such as 1979

Nobel laureate Theodore Schultz—claim that there is a positive correlation between

investment in education and economic growth, and therefore that the agenda of educational

programme planning is the agenda of economics. Policymakers are not selected from

among educational experts in order to devise educational plans and programmes; rather,

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primary responsibility for that work is given to some economists working at supranational

organizations. Resnik (2006) contends that ‘‘the participation of economists of education

and international organizations … in the education expansion contributed to the consoli- dation and diffusion of the education—economic growth black box throughout the world’’

(p. 173).

The proponents of this ‘‘education–economic growth black box’’ approach found a

positive correlation between investment in education and Gross National Product (GNP)

but a negative correlation between investments in other sectors (e.g., agriculture) and the

GNP. They declared that investment in education was necessary to achieve a higher GNP.

Mathematically, to achieve ‘‘expected GNP’’, they needed to add human capital to the

‘‘actual GNP’’. They called the human capital created by such investment the ‘‘residual

factor’’ (Resnik 2006) and spoke of the ‘‘extra earning of the educated, which is assumed to

be due to education’’ (Woodhall 1997, p. 222).

Many scholars who promoted human capital theory looked at the rate and route of

development that the Marshall Plan countries of Europe had followed and assumed they

could be replicated in the LDCs. The proponents of this assumption claimed that ‘‘large

capital infusions plus the transfer of modern technology would enable these countries to

take off into a self-sustaining process of economic development and modernisations, at a

far faster pace than the industrialized nations of the West’’ (Coombs 1985, p. 15).

However, during the 1970s and 1980s, many scholars claimed that human capital theory

was no longer a solution for the poor countries. For example, Philip Coombs, former

director of UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, argued that policies

based on that theory failed to develop the Third World countries that later were recognized

as LDCs (UN 2008). Coombs further argued that the analogy between the Marshall Plan

countries and the LDCs was flawed because the former already had strong economic,

administrative, and industrial infrastructures, and needed only to update their managerial,

research, and technological know-how. They had already developed strong economic,

administrative, and industrial infrastructures. The LDCs where such plans and policies

were transferred lacked all of these requisites.

Despite criticisms, this economistic-positivistic model emerged as a dominant theory of

educational programme planning. In this model ‘‘planners are viewed as technical analysts

or applied researchers who select the best policy option out of a very large number of

possible courses of action, using cost-benefit analysis, manpower planning, and mathe-

matical optimisation technique as instruments for analysis’’ (Verspoor 1992, p. 234). The

major postulation of this economistic-positivistic model was that if the planned actions

were carried out rigorously, the outcomes would automatically materialize. In the case of

Nepal, Carney and Bista (2009) argue that the BPEP Master Plan, promulgated in 1991

with major financial support from the World Bank, was premised on that postulate. They

further argue that the Bank itself provided the framework for the Master Plan. Since then,

economic concepts such as ‘‘improved efficiency’’, ‘‘tangible outputs’’, and ‘‘better

investment’’ have been shaping educational policy discourse in Nepal. The economic

rationales associated with human capital theory have provided the unchallenged premises

underlying the BPEP (1993–2003) and other such programmes as the Education for All

Programme (2004–2009), the Secondary Education Development Project (1992–2000), the

Community School Support Project (2003–2008), and the School Sector Reform Pro-

gramme (2009–2016). The Bank provided both financial and advisory support to all of

these programmes.

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Influence of supranational organizations

Some previous studies have found that the degree of influence that supranational organi-

zations have on national programme planning varies according to the status of the indi-

vidual country in the global economic pyramid. For example, McNeely (1995) studied how

supranational educational norms and processes become institutionalized in national edu-

cation systems. Comparing UNESCO’s policy documents with those of its member

countries, especially the developing ones, McNeely concluded that ‘‘the transnational

exchange of educational ideals and information constitutes a legitimate basis on which the

education systems of individual countries are organized’’ (p. 506).

Similarly, Hall and Peters (2003) studied the impact of global educational agendas such

as Education for All (EFA) on education policies and planning in Peru. They found that

because of the overemphasis on global educational goals, Peru is facing significant

obstacles in achieving quality education. They concluded that there is a disjuncture

between, on the one hand, externally generated educational guidelines and, on the other,

the local realities of educational systems in districts characterized by endemic poverty.

These studies by McNeely (1995) and by Hall and Peters (2003) make it clear that

supranational organizations and their educational agendas significantly influence pro-

gramme planning at the national level. Looking at those studies, I argue that the LDCs,

unlike developed and developing countries, are heavily influenced by global educational

cultures so that the needs and interests of supranational forces become the de facto pri-

orities of the LDCs (Bhatta 2011). One reason behind this, as Cortez and Kim (2012)

argue, is that the internal conflicts and political instabilities often characteristic of LDCs

provide a strong rationale, and ample opportunities, for supranational forces to intervene.

In shifting educational governance from national to supranational forces, ‘‘important

political decisions are taken within supranational networks of power, rather than by the

weakened national institutions’’ (Moutsios 2009, p. 472). Presenting the case of Nepal,

Winther-Schmidt (2011) claims that supranational organizations such as the World Bank

gain more influence over the overall governance of the educational programme mainly

because governments of aid-dependent countries try ‘‘to avoid the risk of donor walkout’’

(p. 61). As none of the LDCs have sufficient financial resources for their educational

programmes, they have little choice but to accept the conditions imposed by financial

institutions such as the Bank and the IMF.

The influence of supranational organizations on the programme planning of the LDCs

accelerated after the World Conference on Education for All (EFA), known as the Jomtien

Conference, in 1990. The World Bank was a leading partner in the EFA initiative. The

conference decided to universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy by

the year 2000 (UNESCO 2013). A follow-up conference in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000,

attended by about 1,100 educational leaders from around the world, approved the Dakar

Framework for Action as a blueprint for the implementation of the EFA plans. The con-

ference intended these EFA goals to contribute to the global pursuit of the 8 Millennium

Development Goals (MDG) adopted by 189 countries in September 2000 (UNDP 2013).

The conference set 2015 as the target date for reaching these goals. However, the midterm

results (UNDP 2013; UNESCO 2013) showed that almost none of the LDCs were on track

to achieve most of the goals by the stipulated date.

After the Jomtien Conference, the LDCs were encouraged, enticed, and even compelled

to try to meet those goals, and specifically to formulate National Plans of Action for

Education for All. Such documents ‘‘reflected the planning vocabulary of the international

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organizations and the funding agencies’’ (Bhatta 2011; Prakash 2008, p. 4). Bhatta further

argues that, since the 1990s, educational policymaking in Nepal ‘‘has become relatively

unimportant if not meaningless because the documents produced within the parameters of

global education targets have become the de facto policy’’ for the country (p. 11).

The World Bank in education

Of the major supranational organizations intervening in educational programme plan-

ning—including the European Union, the Danish International Development Agency

(DANIDA), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Norwegian Agency

for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the Department for International Development

(DFID), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), UNICEF, and UNESCO—the World Bank

has the most powerful influence on the educational activities of the LDCs, mainly because

it provides the largest amount of financial investment in education (Mundy and Menashy

2014). Although the United Nations originally mandated UNESCO to coordinate inter-

national efforts to meet the EFA and the MDGs, ‘‘the World Bank has supplanted the

former … as the primary funding agent’’ (Wickens and Sandlin 2007, p. 277). UNESCO’s budget for 2002 totaled just over US$ 900 million, whereas the Bank provides US$3 billion

in new loan investments annually. Wickens and Sandlin (2007) further argue that

‘‘although UNESCO is less dominated by superpowers such as the G8 countries and has

been called a more representative institution than the Bank, because of recent funding

practices it is not functioning in an autonomous and democratic manner’’ (p. 277). In the

case of Nepal, even though both DANIDA and the Bank provided almost equal amounts of

funding for the BPEP, the Bank controlled the BPEP’s policy and practice (Winther-

Schmidt 2011).

The World Bank’s influence on the LDCs has been more powerful because of its

financial alliance with the IMF. Though both the Bank and the IMF are members of the

Bretton Woods system and agree on the ‘‘Washington Consensus’’ (Moutsios 2009), they

have different functions. Unlike the Bank, ‘‘the IMF does not make project investments or

reform education policies; it only engages in structural and sectorial adjustment lending’’

(Alexander 2001, p. 287). Despite these functional nuances, the auspicious joint venture of

these two organizations has made them powerful enough to dictate educational policies and

programmes to the LDCs. Out of the 192 countries that the UN recognizes, 185 are

members of the IMF and the Bank. But the power of the member states in both of the

organizations is distributed very asymmetrically. The Bank ‘‘functions as a cooperative and

its member states as shareholders’’ (Moutsios 2009, p. 473). Not surprisingly, as it is a

‘‘bank’’ and functions as a cooperative, members do not have equal proportions of shares.

Five industrialized nations—the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, and France—hold 37.4% of

the shares, with the US alone holding 16.4%. Adding in the shares of the other G8, OECD,

and EU countries, the economically powerful states possess over 50% (Moutsios 2009).

More unfortunate for the LDCs is the fact that economic power translates into voting

power. The Bank is governed by a 24-member board of directors; the 5 industrialized

nations with the greatest number of shares appoint 1 director each and the remaining 180

member states elect the other 19 members (Moutsios 2009). The accepted practice is that

‘‘the president of the World Bank is appointed by the US and the president of the IMF by

the EU’’ (Moutsios 2009, p. 473). It is important to note that the Structural Adjustment

Programmes launched through the joint initiatives of the Bank and the IMF have reap-

peared in recent decades through the introduction of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers

(PRSPs). It is almost mandatory for all the LDCs to follow PRSP guidelines in applying for

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loans from the Bank and the IMF. For example, Nepal’s Tenth 5-Year Plan (2002–2007), a

national plan that guides policies and programs of all sectors including education, adhered

to the PRSP framework provided by the Bank/IMF (Rappleye 2009).

The World Bank in Nepal

It is evident that the influence of the World Bank on educational programme planning is

immense and multifaceted.

One facet of the Bank’s influence is its active promotion of decentralization of edu-

cation in all the LDCs, including Nepal (World Bank 2001). The Bank defines decen-

tralization as ‘‘the transfer of authority and responsibility for governance and public service

delivery from a higher to a lower level of government’’ (World Bank 2008, p. xiv).

Through decentralization, the Bank wants to provide greater autonomy to the local com-

munities that are primarily responsible for making investments in education. According to

Rappleye (2009), the transfer of state-owned schools to the local communities was a

minimum requirement for obtaining loans from the Bank for both the BPEP and the

Community School Support Project (CSSP, 2003–2008). To legalize the required decen-

tralization, Nepal amended its Education Act (1971) in 2001. That amendment mandates

that states transfer their control over all public schools to the local communities (Carney

and Bista 2009). The decentralization of school governance is a departure from the cen-

tralized school governance system in effect during the Panchayat regime (1960–1990). But

in Nepal, the current discourse of decentralization embodies a neoliberal interpretation of

educational demand that promotes market values.

The World Bank does not admit that decentralization is part of its agenda; rather it

claims that national governments are demanding it (World Bank 2008). But some scholars

critique decentralization as an ‘‘imposition’’ of neoliberal ideas onto the educational

programme planning of aid-dependent countries (Carney, Bista, and Agergaard 2007;

Rappleye 2009). They claim that LDC governments are forced to decentralize their edu-

cation systems ‘‘without the creation of local organizations with capacity to organize

education’’ (McGinn 1994, p. 293). In Nepal, the community now manages about one third

of state-funded schools. But centralization has negatively impacted the quality of education

that those schools provide. For example, researchers have shown (Carney and Bista 2009)

that hiring and firing teachers based on the decisions of local school management com-

mittees (SMCs) has left school teachers at the mercy of local leaders. When school staffing

becomes a local political issue, local leaders often make decisions based on their vested

political interests rather than on the interests of the students. In addition, Carney et al.

(2007) found that many head teachers and SMCs have tried ‘‘to reproduce the model of the

private or boarding school’’ (p. 625). Carney and Bista (2009) claim that decentralization

policy has not solved the existing educational problems in Nepal. The formation processes

of the SMCs have not been fair and democratic; all too often, a handful of local political

elites have become the leaders of the SMCs. The net result is that there has been no

significant improvement in the overall quality of education.

A second facet of the World Bank’s impact has been to promote privatization in

education, a priority long on the Bank’s agenda. In 1995, the Bank argued that even though

public intervention in education could be justified as helping to reduce inequality and to

open opportunities for the poor and disadvantaged, public spending on education was often

an inefficient and inequitable financing method (World Bank 1995). The Bank’s aim is ‘‘to

expand the provision of educational services by private firms and nongovernmental

organizations’’ (Alexander 2001, p. 287). Alexander argues that in some instances this

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approach may have some merit; however, it ‘‘endangers educational progress because it

ignores the fact that when educational services are provided at cost, they will not reach

poor populations even when subsidy schemes are used’’ (p. 287). In recent decades, the

Bank has promoted public-private partnership (PPP) as an educational financing model for

donor agencies in several LDCs, including Nepal (World Bank 2011). However, the PPP

model has accelerated the privatization of education not only in financing but also in

management and governance of entire education systems. In the context of neoliberal

globalization, multinational corporations regard education as a profitable investment

sector.

The demands of globalization, neoliberalism, and neocolonialism have shaped the

World Bank’s influence on educational systems in the LDCs (Wickens and Sandlin 2007).

The educational programme planning advocated by the Bank and its kindred financial

institutions is heavily influenced by the vested interests of the industrialized nations and

multinational corporations that effectively control those institutions. Critics claim that

those organizations are ‘‘the main promoters of the neoliberal agenda in the discourse,

policies and organizational practices of educational institutions’’ (Moutsios 2009, p. 475).

Wickens and Sandlin (2007) state that ‘‘as these agencies are predominantly Western

institutions, they reproduce Western ideas of education across the globe’’; further, they

argue, ‘‘there is an on-going globalization of educational policy and practice’’ and what

prevails ‘‘is the Western paradigm of what constitutes good educational practice’’ (p. 289).

Thus, educational initiatives sponsored by those organizations have reproduced the dom-

inant educational culture, as exemplified by economistic-positivistic or technical-rational

planning models. Both of these models neglect indigenous epistemologies and all non-

Western ideas and understandings.

Not surprisingly, the World Bank is forcing LDCs to change their educational policies and

practices according to its own interests. World Bank loans and grants are not only contingent

upon the successful achievement of the outcomes the Bank desires, but also constrained by

its criteria for fund allocation. For a couple of decades, the Bank did not provide loans and

grants for higher education. The EFA and MDGs (goal #2) on education both of which the

Bank finances, focused on achieving universal primary education but neglected higher

education. Wickens and Sandlin (2007) claim that the Bank and the IMF have both with-

drawn financial support to various countries because of alleged governmental misallocation

of funds. The former found that those countries ‘‘misallocate’’ funds to higher education

instead of to basic education. Too many countries are ineligible for grants because ‘‘donors

do not consider them to be politically strategic or because the donors that do support them do

not focus on basic education’’ (Wickens and Sandlin 2007, p. 286).

Finally, donors such as the World Bank have made LDCs more dependent on inter-

national financial support in a way that has thwarted the potential of these countries to find

sustainable solutions to their problems. They have weakened the ability of LDC govern-

ments and their people to be independent and genuinely self-governing, shaping their

subjectivities in ways that erode their capacity to make wise decisions for the benefit of

their societies. As argued by McGinn (1994), the growth of supranational organizations has

reduced the sovereignty of nation-states, weakening their willingness and ability to provide

high-quality public education.

The amount of loans and grants from the World Bank to developing countries has

increased significantly since the 1990 Jomtien Conference. For example, a significant

portion (about 75%) of the estimated budget (US$ 96.18 million) for Nepal’s current

School Sector Reform Programme (SSRP, 2009–2016) is expected to come from foreign

donors, mainly the Bank. What happens when these donors stop lending? Given the LDCs’

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economic conditions, if that were to happen, almost all the educational programmes in the

poor countries would stop because those countries have been made to be dependent on

external assistance. As argued by Mundy and Menashy (2014, p. 22), the Bank does ‘‘not

really want to do anything at the bottom of the pyramid’’.

The problem is not limited to the conditions imposed for receiving loans and grants. The

power and influence of institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are propagating a

culture of international servitude where the donors are the masters and the nation-states are

compelled to formulate policies and plans that support the donors’ interests. In their

observations of some biannual joint meetings between donors and the Government of

Nepal, both Bhatta (2011) and Winther-Schmidt (2011) found a very asymmetrical power

relation between the two parties. In most cases, the donors interact with representatives

from the Nepalese government in a way that makes it seem that the policies and pro-

grammes are being made and implemented for the donors, not for the Nepalese. Those

authors further claim that Nepalese government liaisons rarely object to the conditions

placed on financial assistance and do not request changes in programme delivery, giving

the appearance that to do so would displease the donors and cause them to walk out.

The prospects of programme planning in education

The ideological and philosophical underpinnings of the technical-rational model stem from

theories of behaviourism, positivism, and human capital. Although this model has long

been hegemonic, it has nonetheless been critiqued from several perspectives within the

academic community. Feminism, postmodernism, and critical theory have provided the-

oretical and philosophical standpoints that are helpful for exploring the shortcomings of the

technical-rational model and adding new dimensions to the discourse on programme

planning (Sork 2000). Many scholars have critiqued the work of Tyler (1949), Knowles

(1970), and Houle (1972), based on the technical-rational model (Cervero and Wilson

1994, 1998; Sork 2000, 2010; Wilson and Cervero 1997).

Even though these critiquing authors have focused on different aspects of the technical-

rational model, they have made some common, and crucial, points. For example, using a

question-based approach to programme planning, Sork (2000) argues that a good planner

should be technically capable, politically aware, and ethically responsible. Cervero and

Wilson (1994, 1998), on the other hand, look at the negotiation of power, the conflicts of

interest, and the conception of responsibility among the people and institutions involved in

programme planning. They define programme planning as a social activity, in which

planners negotiate interests in organizational contexts ‘‘structured by power relations’’

(Cervero and Wilson 1998, p. 5). They also emphasize that power relations do not emerge

all of a sudden in the ongoing context of planning, but rather that they are historically

developed and structurally organized. Similarly, Sork (1996) argues that in order to fully

understand planning we must understand where power comes from and how it is dis-

tributed, redistributed, and exercised.

These scholars provide useful ways to analyze the influence of supranational organi-

zations on programme planning in the LDCs. For example, Cervero and Wilson (1994)

argue that the power of supranational organizations such as the World Bank did not emerge

all of a sudden. Further, Sork (1996) insists that to fully understand educational planning in

the LDCs, we must understand the source of power. Below, I present three pertinent issues

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related to power negotiation between the Bank and the LDCs while planning educational

programmes.

First, many programme-planning scholars maintain that identifying the need of the

learners as well as of their communities is the first and most important step in planning a

good educational programme. But when supranational organizations, especially the World

Bank, impose their own conditions for financial assistance—for example, a plan for

achieving EFA and MDG targets, or steps to decentralize and privatize education—it

becomes impossible to address the real needs of learners and their communities, for the

reasons discussed throughout this article.

Second, some critics of the technical-rationale model maintain that to be sound, an

educational programme must be developed through the active involvement of all con-

cerned stakeholders. But because supranational organizations and their consultants—often

hired from Western donor countries and think tanks—control the funding, they can compel

educational planners in the LDCs to subordinate their perceived needs to the global goals

and targets of the funders themselves. The supposed expertise of the donors, which

Bourdieu (1984) would say works as symbolic power that makes people ‘‘believe’’ (p. 480)

in donors’ expertise, is inconsistent with ‘‘the quality of interaction required for a recip-

rocal partnership’’ (Winther-Schmidt 2011, p. 61). Winther-Schmidt further argues that,

even if Nepal did have a good number of what he calls ‘‘educationists’’, ‘‘only the World

Bank and other savvy donors—not the Government of Nepal, seemed to know how to

make a good use of local expertise’’ (p. 61). Power is not a one-way relationship (Cervero

and Wilson 1994). It always involves some reciprocity and is a function of the negotiations

among the various people involved. But the power relation between the supranational

organizations (the creditors) and the LDCs (the debtors) is not fully reciprocal and cannot

be negotiated because these debtors and creditors do not exercise equal power. The key is

that the debtors fear not getting the loans and grants they need if they oppose the creditors’

proposals (Rappleye 2009).

Third, to be effective, programme planners should be attuned to, and able to advocate

forcefully for, the needs of their citizens (Sork 2000). But the enormous disparity in

political power between the LDCs and the donor financial institutions renders programme

planners in those countries virtually powerless to prioritize local needs over and against the

agendas of those institutions. Therefore, it is no surprise that educational programme

planning in Nepal for the last three decades has followed the World Bank’s framework and

guidelines (Carney and Bista 2009; Winther-Schmidt 2011).

Thus, I conclude that there is a great power asymmetry—perpetuated for decades—

between national programme planners (mainly of the LDCs) and programme planners

associated with supranational organizations. Hence, no matter how advanced the pro-

gramme planning theories are, they have almost no effect on the educational practices of

the LDCs.

Conclusions

In this article, I have argued that the efforts of the international community and the

commitment of individual nations have not improved educational practices in the LDCs. I

suggest that the power and support mechanisms are unequal between supranational

organizations and the LDCs. Moreover, chaos, tension, and power asymmetry between the

two are ever-increasing. In the context of rising transnational governance in education,

The influence of supranational organizations on educational… 511

123

programme planning is no longer the exclusive affair of a nation-state. Against the

backdrop of all these developments, I argued that (1) the educational policies promoted by

international financial agencies like the World Bank are heavily influenced by particular

ideological assumptions of the technical-rational model and of human capital theory that

are profoundly inappropriate to the actual situations of LDCs like Nepal; (2) that the

enormous disparity in power between LDCs like Nepal and the financial institutions like

the World Bank allows those institutions to impose their educational agendas on the LDCs;

(3) that, as a result, the intervention of those institutions does not improve the education

provided by LDCs like Nepal; and (4) therefore, meaningful progress in improving edu-

cation in LDCs like Nepal will require a persuasive critique of those assumptions and the

disproportionate financial, and therefore political, power of international financial agencies

like the World Bank.

Educational planning cannot be limited to applying economic theory to educational

problems (Verspoor 1992); rather, it should break the ‘‘education-economic growth black

box’’ (Resnik 2006) and interrupt the economistic and positivistic tradition of programme

planning. The thinking of educational planners working at both the supranational and

national levels should transcend this economistic-positivistic boundary. Such an ontolog-

ical departure would open up new avenues for justified collaboration between donors and

national governments. Supranational organizations should encourage and promote such a

departure so that national and local educational planners are unconditionally allowed to

make wise decisions based solely on the needs and interests of their own populace. In so

doing, agencies such as the World Bank could, finally, legitimately justify their endeavours

to help poor countries and their citizens (Wickens and Sandlin 2007).

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Kapil Dev Regmi (Nepal) received his master’s degree in development studies at Kathmandu University in 2009. After teaching for 10 years in Nepal, he is now a Ph.D. candidate and sessional lecturer at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include comparative education, international development, lifelong learning, policy studies, and educational planning.

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