ABSTRACT
Since the late 1990s, the World Bank has been consistent in encouraging the government of Indonesia (GOI) to incorporate school-based management (SBM) into law and into practice. This chapter discusses World Bank projects related to this theme, highlighting not only the focus of the relevant projects but also the way that the World Bank and the GOI have worked together and influenced one another. The purpose is to address developments glossed over in the previous chapter that looked primarily at community-driven development. This chapter complements previous chapters by focusing on the education sector and by providing additional details on what came before and after the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), when the current block grant model that emphasizes community accountability was adapted to education. In so doing, a number of mechanisms of World Bank influence will be discussed. While all projects addressed reveal the deep influence of the World Bank’s technical assistance (including on national policy), other mechanisms include knowledge dissemination, loan conditionalities (part of the provision and management of foreign aid), and national actor socialization. The mechanisms brought into focus here complement those underscored in the previous chapter. While the focus on mechanisms highlights the influence of the World Bank, the reader should recall that the final chapter places these mechanisms into wider context to reflect on the extent to which they have been impactful (or not) in contributing to the emergence of a “governance state” where technical processes geared to increase accountability and efficiency replace explicitly political dynamics.
