Similarities and Differences in Policy Reform Destinies

This chapter offers an alternative reading that supports most of the conclusion but which draws closer attention to the critical issue of implementation. In many respects the six country cases focused on have followed a similar path in education policy: all expended significant effort increasing coverage in line with an international agenda and often national project; all came to recognize the limits of this for quality outcomes; and all subsequently attempted to implement quality-oriented reforms. They differ, however, in the success of this implementation and the subsequent outcomes of these latter reforms. With quality being far harder to deliver than access, these reforms exposed the fault lines within their political settlements. Political constituencies and actors within the sector resisted them, and technical limitations and influence of policy legacies became evident. Part of the policy agenda that emerges from this is finding ways to counteract these political vulnerabilities, for example, by focusing on sub-national political dynamics, or by linking education quality to a national project of development.