Interrogating an omission: the absence of a rights-based approach to education in World Bank policy discourse

Abstract

This study provides a discursive analysis of World Bank policy documents in order to reveal the stark omission of a rights-based approach to education, while highlighting instead the support of an economic-instrumentalist approach. Plausible explanations are provided to shed light on this exclusion, including the feasibility critique of education as a right, and the Bank's limited institutional mandate. However, the rationales are presented as unsound and unacceptable justifications for the omission. By drawing on Amartya Sen's theoretical work on human rights and development policy frameworks, this study concludes by arguing for the Bank to integrate into their mandate a conception of education as a human right.

Keywords:

• World Bank
• educational rights
• human rights
• international education policy
• policy discourse
• discourse analysis

Notes

1. See, for instance, Herbertson et al. (2010) who forward as one of their arguments that ‘studies have shown that many countries that demonstrate a higher respect for human rights experience higher economic growth’ (p. 3), in order to promote a rights-based approach to development at the World Bank.

2. The World Bank Group consists of five branches. In this study all references to the Bank are specifically referring to the lending arms, the International Development Association and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

3. And only once uses the phrase ‘human rights’, in the context of the description of a learning module in Mexico.

4. The third sub-article of education as a human right which states that parents have a prior right to educational choice, is often considered supportive of private participation in education (see Willmore, 2004; World Bank, 2004). However, most advocates of a rights-based approach to education maintain that parental choice does not preclude government as primary financier, regulator and provider. (See Archer, 2006; Tomasevski, 2003; UNICEF, 2008.)

5. This focus is not to ignore the rationale for omitting a rights-based approach associated with the human rights claim to universality, leading to accusations of ‘cultural imperialism’ (see Donnelly, 2003; Freeman, 2002; Robeyns, 2006; Sen, 2006). This criticism is not invoked as a potential rationale for the Bank's exclusion of a rights-based approach, for there is no evidence to suggest that such an argument would be forwarded by the World Bank.