Demystifying the World Bank's Work in Tertiary Education

This talk by Roberta Malee Bassett, Global Lead for Tertiary Education and Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank, will describe the World Bank's work in supporting tertiary education reform initiatives around the world. The talk will present some of the history (including controversial but still relevant issues like rates of return to education spending and issues of post-secondary labor market relevance) and the related evolution of the World Bank's efforts in supporting post-secondary education. She will describe a bit about the instruments used to support client needs in this area – including lending, consulting, and analytical work. Roberta will close her brief presentation with a draft "Top 10" list of priority intervention areas that are being proposed in the forthcoming position paper on tertiary education for the 21st century. She will use this talk and discussion time to discuss and debate whether these are, in fact, key priorities and which, if any, might be worth reconsidering on this list.

Bio

Roberta Malee Bassett is the Global Lead for Tertiary Education and Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank, providing technical expertise for projects related to tertiary education reform initiatives around the world. She has been the team lead for a variety of tertiary education projects in the African and European/Central Asian regions, working in areas including finance and quality assurance reform, internationalization of higher education, equity and access, research and competitiveness, and skills development. She currently serves on the Editorial Board of Higher Education Quarterly and on the International Advisory Board of the International Network for Higher Education in Africa (INHEA). She is the author/editor of numerous publications on topics related to higher education, including: The WTO and the University: Globalization, GATS, and American Higher Education (2006); International Organizations and Higher Education Policy: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally? (2009); and The Forefront of International Higher Education: A Festschrift in Honor of Philip G. Altbach (2014). Roberta holds a B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University; an MA in Higher Education Administration from Stanford University; and a PhD in (International) Higher Education from Boston College. During the 2019-2020 academic year, Roberta is a Chen Yidan Visiting Global Fellow at GSE: https://globalfellows.gse.harvard.edu/current-fellows.