World Bank Getting Involved in Vietnamese Primary Education

From mchale@gwu.edu Wed Jan 30 09:19:27 2002

Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 12:36:39 -0500

From: mchale <mchale@gwu.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: World Bank getting involved in Vietnamese primary education

List:

Some of you may be interested to see what the World Bank is doing in Vietnam today. You can go to the World Bank site (www.worldbank.org) and look under Vietnam for a list of projects that are active.

Among other projects, one that caught my attention is that the World Bank is getting involved in primary teacher training. This plan has been in the works for some time, but apparently has just gotten final approval. See the report at:

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/05/12/000094946_99051205342373/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf

While there is a clear logic to World Bank involvement in Vietnamese primary education -- it is getting increasingly interested in promoting institutional development through national governments -- this involvement strikes me as odd. Why is a BANK leading the way on this? Not surprisingly, this document reflects a top down approach to educational reform, one in which the latest buzzwords of education/ pedagogical reform are thrown around. I am wondering if others on this list have had experience with the Bank on any phase of this project.

Shawn McHale

(writing two blocks away from the World Bank)

From hchauncey@starpower.net Wed Jan 30 09:20:02 2002

Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 07:30:53 -0500

From: Helen R. Chauncey <hchauncey@starpower.net>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: World Bank getting involved in Vietnamese primary education

Shawn,

Thanks for this; it is very interesting. You're probably aware that this isn't the Bank's first foray into primary education in Vietnam. In the mid-1990s, the Bank tried to take this on, on its terms, with loans for -among other things - class room infrastructure. The grapevine version of this, which is obviously not to be taken at face value, included a description of the tab-chairs the Bank was interested in offering loans to Vietnam to purchase. To its credit, Hanoi turned the offer down. The Bank then produced a rather good report - quite good - on the needs for educational reform in Vietnam, which, Bank veneer aside, got most of the message right on the nose. Line this report up side by side with the UNDP report produced only a few years earlier and lessons in the posture and perspectives of foreign donors are thrown into clear relief. In the meantime, a Bank team, consultant lead, struggled with efforts to switch Bank attention to the tertiary level. So now, we have this.

As your email effectively suggests, educational reform isn't necessarily a straight forward bank-loan proposition. In all fairness to the Bank's in-country team, the concern here may be that education is, inter alia, an economic proposition. Weak educational systems make for weak economies.

The accompanying problems, such as top-down perspectives, may not be the only issues. There is another potential problem for all foreigners (define that however you like) dealing with educational reform.

Education is a socio-cultural issue as much as it is an economic one. Writings by David Marr and David Elliott, among others, remind of us of this in critical and comprehensive ways, as do Biff Keyes' writings on education in Thailand (and, ironically, the World Bank's writings on the state.)

Also in the meantime, Ford/Vietnam has turned its attention to education, with an emphasis on community colleges. Community college reform has been high on MOE (and previously MOET's) agenda - this dates to at least the early 1990s. The interest on Ford's part is not, it would appear, freighted with an economic straight-jacket. It also fits with a very interesting Ford initiative in the U.S. on community colleges (there are details on the Ford web-page).

All of which is food for thought. Many thanks again for the post.

Helen Chauncey

From OJHM.Salemink@scw.vu.nl Wed Jan 30 09:20:19 2002

Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 15:56:44 +0100

From: Oscar Salemink <OJHM.Salemink@scw.vu.nl>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: World Bank getting involved in Vietnamese primary educa

Helen, Shawn and list:

I haven't read the latest World Bank document but in all fairness, the Bank has tried to listen this time by organizing a series of meetings with various stakeholders, and has attempted to include various groups and voices from Vietnam and the international community (including many INGO that work on experimentation and reform in education in Vietnam). Within the Bank there is a lot of fuzz around the concept of "knowledge economy" and within Vietnam there has been a lot of fuzz about education reform around concepts of creativity and equity, so there is that resonance. Consultation processes are never perfect, and one can always wonder whether loans are the right instrument for this - but on the other hand, many people urged the Bank to focus more on "social development".

As far as I know, Ford Vietnam is not so much focusing on community colleges but rather on equity and access to higher education for diverse "historically underprivileged groups" in Vietnam -- but that program is just starting up.

Oscar Salemink

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

De Boelelaan 1081c

1081 HV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Phone: (+31)(0)20-444 6712 / 6704

Fax: (+31)(0)20-444 6722

E-mail: O.Salemink@scw.vu.nl

Website: http://www.vu.nl/medewerkers/casnws/salemink.html

From smg7@cornell.edu Wed Jan 30 09:20:33 2002

Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 12:24:14 -0500 (EST)

From: smg7@cornell.edu

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: World Bank getting involved in Vietnamese primary education

Quoting mchale <mchale@gwu.edu>:

> List:

> Some of you may be interested to see what the World

>Bank is doing in Vietnam today. You can go to the World

>Bank site (www.worldbank.org) and look under

Well holy moleee! Some discussion on development issues on the VSG list. My thanks to Shawn for his provocative post, and to Oscar and Helen for replying so far.

Reading the project information document from April, 2000,

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSServlet?pcont=details&eid=000094946_99051205342373

I note that slightly more than half of the funding is (supposed to be) a grant from the UK state development agency, so right there we have some additional initiative outside of the WB. And what the Bank is contributing is sourced as a loan, although soft it certainly is. But if this is the 2002 funding arrangement, it debunks the assumption that this is purely or largely a Bank initiative.

At the macro analytical level (whoops, sociologicalese!), for several years there has been a move afoot to inject some ?humanistic? considerations into the Bank?s paradigmatic economism in the way it yields its regulatory and disciplinary hegemony over Third World countries. Amartya Sen didn?t bring home a slice of the Nobel pie for nothing. Old story, actually, iron fist, velvet glove, in my view. This humble skepticism is best enunciated in the ?Two Banks? hypothesis: there is an intentional and tactical structure inside the Bank that juxtaposes the disciplinary demands of multinational capital against a mechanism that constructs a dialectical accord with the stable developmental aspirations of the Bretton Woods agreement, ideological grandfather of the Bank, and a document that in no way gives any coercive or regulatory fiscal power to the WB. I must apologize for not being

able to cite the exact argument and source: my Swiss cheese memory recalls the hypothesis as that of a Johns Hopkins professor, circa 1996 (the file is buried somewhere deep on a floppy disk in my dingleberry archives of old listserve posts - sorry).

What this means is that ?social capital? is IN at the WB. Don?t believe it? Check out the sexy WB Social Capital web site http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/ All you could ever need to start your own social movement – and it?s free. Downstream, this translates into education being fashionable in developmental policy-practitioner circles. Like Britney Spears cuts a track and then Spice Girls, Janet Jackson, Cher are all on the line. It seems that education is the thing with Canada?s CIDA for it makes education one of its four current funding pillars. For a little bit more on this, there?s an interesting (and easy to get to) critique on the Internet of the 2000/2001 WB World Development Report as well as the current CIDA plans by Xavier Furtado of CIDA?s International Financial Institutions Division http://www.iir.ubc.ca/cancaps/furtado.html So skepticism aside, there is certainly debate on these issues apart from the endemic ?Battle in Seattle? unpleasantness that seems to beset Bank and IMF leadership whenever it convenes.

And I just can?t end this letter without an interesting anecdote from 2000 Saigon/HCMC. My old favorite uppity rag, Tuoi Tre, had a story about Prof. Joseph Stiglitz. Mr. Stiglitz was formerly the Chair of President Clinton?s economic development advisory council, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics at that time, and currently Nobel laureate (proof that in the world of economists, white boys can jump). Stiglitz visited the city and gave a talk on the Bank?s and his view of Vietnamese development paths. I got a real laugh on the bus when I read TT?s report that he told a group of middle level Vietnamese government and business people that ?Vietnam should follow (South, ed.) Korea?s example of striving for political homogeneity and stability? for the sake of effective economic development. Hasn?t that been every human right advocate?s and Cold Warrior?s complaint about the SRVN over the past decade? Normalization of relations is indeed a two way street. But hold on to your soft loans, that?s not all. One of my Cornell advisors was in town that week (teaching) and attended another talk that Dr. Stiglitz gave to an audience that included local economics students. My buddy related this tale: When Dr. Stiglitz concluded his remarks on global development, he invited questions from listeners.

An English speaking Viet student got up and asked what the differences were between the workings of contemporary export oriented economies (Vietnam?s current aspiration) and the former colonial production system. After a respectful if awkward silence, ?Next question please?? was the agenda.

Respectfully,

sgraw

*********

Stephen Graw, Development Sociology and Southeast Asia Program

Cornell University