The Bretton Woods conference on the international monetary system and financial order in 1944 is often cited as a major historical moment in the inception of contemporary educational development. That is because the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, commonly known as the “World Bank,” was established at the conference, along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The Bretton Woods system, as these organisations are collectively referred to, turned to education in the 1960s after a decade and a half of reconstruction and development in Europe. The World Bank, which mainly re-built roads and infrastructure in war-torn Europe, added educational development in terms of human capital to justify entering many African countries. Eventually the World Bank (along with the IMF) had a presence in most low-income countries, offering loans for various development projects, often times with conditions attached to loan agreements. These conditional loans were apparent in the structural adjustment policies implemented in many countries in the 1980s, but most famously in Latin and South America.
The Bretton Woods system often receives blame for many of the problems within educational development. Steven Klees, Joel Samoff, and Nelly Stromquist write in their 2012 edited volume on the Bank in education:
The World Bank’s enthusiasm for its own policy pronouncements and practical advice has not been matched by sustained progress in the implementation of education as a human right or in the achievement of quality education for all in the settings in which it is most active. Regularly, its recommendations are a problem, not a solution. Of course, the determinants of education progress are multiple and situational. Still, since the World Bank intends its education policies and strategies to be prime movers for global education, it is essential to subject them to systematic, grounded, and critical scrutiny.
I tend to agree with much of the critique of the Bank in education. Nevertheless, I recently found an interesting lecture by the Post-Kaynesian economist, Steve Keen, on two competing proposals for the international monetary system and financial order offered at Bretton Woods. It’s a great piece of history that explains many of the financial problems the world faces today, especially after the Global Finical Crisis of 2007. Someone should write a research paper of educational development through the history presented by Keen below. Maybe that someone will be me.