Brasil só deve dominar Leitura em 260 anos, aponta estudo do Banco Mundial Relatorio Banco Mundial _Learning

methods, and they need to care enough to make the
change because teaching the new curriculum may
be much more demanding than the old rote learning
methods. Even if teachers are on board with curriculum
reform, students could weaken its effects if an
unreformed examination system creates misaligned
incentives. In Korea, the high-stakes exam system
for university entrance has weakened efforts to
reorient secondary school learning. The curriculum
has changed to build students’ creativity and socioemotional
skills, but many parents still send their children
to private “cram schools” for test preparation. 49
The need for coherence makes it risky to borrow
system elements from other countries. Education policy
makers and other experts often scrutinize systems
that have better learning outcomes to identify what
they could borrow. Indeed, in the 2000s the search for
the secret behind Finland’s admirable record of learning
with equity led to a swarm of visiting delegations
in what the Finns dubbed “PISA tourism.” Finland’s
system gives considerable autonomy to its welleducated
teachers, who can tailor their teaching to
the needs of their students. But lower-performing
systems that import Finland’s teacher autonomy
into their own contexts are likely to be disappointed:
if teachers are poorly educated, unmotivated, and
loosely managed, giving them even more autonomy
will likely make matters worse. South Africa discovered
this in the 1990s and 2000s when it adopted a
curriculum approach that set goals but left implementation
up to teachers. 50 The approach failed because
it proved to be a poor fit for the capacity of teachers
and the resources at their disposal. 51 Home-grown,
context-specific solutions are important.
Successful systems combine both alignment and
coherence. Alignment means that learning is the goal
of the various components of the system. Coherence
means that the components reinforce each other in
achieving whatever goals the system has set for them.
When systems achieve both, they are much more likely
to promote student learning. Too much misalignment
or incoherence leads to failure to achieve learning,
though the system might achieve other goals (table O.1).
Political challenges: Key players don’t
always want to prioritize student learning
Political challenges compound technical ones. Many
education actors have different interests, again
beyond learning. Politicians act to preserve their
positions in power, which may lead them to target
particular groups (geographic, ethnic, or economic)
for benefits. Bureaucrats may focus more on keeping
Figure O.11 Technical and political factors divert
schools, teachers, and families from a focus on
learning
Teachers
School management
Source: WDR 2018 team.
LEARNING
politicians and teachers happy than on promoting
student learning, or they may simply try to protect
their own positions. Some private suppliers of education
services—whether textbooks, construction, or
schooling—may, in the pursuit of profit, advocate policy
choices not in the interest of students. Teachers
and other education professionals, even when motivated
by a sense of mission, also may fight to maintain
secure employment and to protect their incomes.
None of this is to say that education actors don’t care
about learning. Rather, especially in poorly managed
systems, competing interests may loom larger than
the learning-aligned interests (table O.2).
Misalignments aren’t random. Because of these
competing interests, the choice of a particular policy
is rarely determined by whether it improves learning.
More often, the choice is made by the more powerful
actors in the policy arena. Agents are accountable to
one another for different reasons, not just learning.
Given these interests, it should come as no surprise
that little learning often results.
One problem is that activities to promote learning
are difficult to manage. Teaching and learning in the
Learners
School inputs
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