Managing the politics of quality reforms in education policy lessons from global experience

The politics of education reform are under researched and under analyzed. This paper surveys the small academic literature on the politics of reform as well as empirical research on reform experiences, with the aim of distilling out key lessons for reform politics. We focus especially on recent cases of quality-oriented education reforms of basic education in the developing world. Three main characteristics make politics in education reform different from other policy areas: 1) ubiquity and power of teacher unions; 2) opacity of the classroom and consequent difficulties in monitoring reform and performance; and 3) reform results only emerge in the longer run. Most previous research falls into four categories, according to the main drivers of education politics: 1) voters, elections, the left, and democracy generally; 2) the structure of the economy and the resulting skill needs of business; 3) regime and nation building; and 4) policy entrepreneurs. However, research is still generally sparse with little dialogue among these approaches. A close review of all major stakeholders is a crucial first step to understanding potential sources of opposition and support. This paper was prepared as a background paper for the report, The Learning Generation: Investing in education for a changing world.