National Learning Goals

The WDR 2018 highlights how education systems are often poorly aligned with learning goals. These misalignments are driven in part by technical complexities: education systems simulataneously pursuing many conflicting goals, with many system actors continually interacting in complex ways. Even when learning is recognized as a central goal, it often receives less prominence than other objectives. And even when the learning goal is clearly defined, the way education systems are organized sometimes hampers performance.

Goal alignment has two elements:  First, there needs to be an overall strategy and goal that is clearly articulated. Second, all relevant organizations and stakeholders playing a role in the education system must be working towards that goal, or at the very least not hampering the efforts towards that goal. Effective goal orientation in organizations revolves around sound management practices. Principal-agent approaches underline the centrality of monitoring and incentives to motivate staff to perform. Good management entails clarity in setting organizational goals and targets; regular monitoring of these targets; effective personnel management, including how managers distribute tasks across employees, involve staff in problem solving, and give staff the autonomy to carry out their tasks; and the regularity and robustness of performance evaluations. These goal-oriented elements of management also need to be complemented with effective engagement of policy-makers and bureaucrats with communities to help parents monitor front-line service providers.