Educational Development in Asia: Issues in Planning, Policy, and Finance

Most Asian countries have consistently invested heavily in education over the last three decades. Access, participation, and achievement have reached unprecedented levels throughout the region, albeit large differences remain between the more developed and less developed systems. It is widely believed that economic growth in the 21st century will depend on the deployment of the intellectual capital that is developed by effective education systems. The educational challenge this presents is to find ways to continue raising the levels of educational endowments at sustainable levels of cost, especially where austerity creates short-term constraints on public finance. This paper locates recent educational development in an international context and profiles the current status of educational investment in different groups of Asian countries. It explores the issues that are likely to shape how systems will evolve in the first part of the 21st century, and provides analyses of the impact of demographic trends, and of the factors that will influence public financing, patterns of resource allocation, and internal efficiency. The results of these analyses are translated into future scenarios for different groups of countries. The paper concludes with a series of policy-oriented conclusions that identify priorities for governments and donors.