Constructing Knowledge Societies? The World Bank and the New Lending Policy for Tertiary Education

Introduction The World Bank’s report Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education (2002) quickly became a bestseller. Its many ideas and recommendations have entered the global debate about the present changes in higher education. The quick spread of the report has once again reminded us of the fact that the influence of the World Bank on discourses far exceeds its importance as lending institutions. In that respect the World Bank truly is the ‘knowledge bank’ it claims to be. The (then) new director for the World Bank’s Human Development Division, Mamphela Ramphele, endorsed the report in her foreword. She not only expressed, but also represented, the link to the independent Task Force on Higher Education and Society, being one of the driving forces behind the task force’s report: Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise, published in the symbolic year 2000. This report is also widely spread and still widely read. It has truly contributed to the debate about constructing knowledge societies in the developing world. The Peril and Promise report is, according to Ramphele, well received by the inner circles of the World Bank. The 2002 report under scrutiny here is thus a timely continuation and a concretisation of future World Bank lending policies in this sector. And whatever may be finally decided, governments of poor countries, particularly in Africa, are, according to our experience, already adjusting their ‘lending jargon’ to the suggestions of the report.