The World Bank has been called the most influential organization in education reform globally. Not only is it the single largest funder of education for international development, but it also produces knowledge, circulates discourse, and structures policymaking processes in ways that extend its influence far beyond its primary role as a bank.…

Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) have been playing a prominent role in the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement in advocating for and supporting the development of governmental OER policies. Research shows that IGOs perform multiple roles in influencing national and global education policy processes and possess multiple policy…

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's in-house science and knowledge service, employing a substantial staff of scientists devoted to conducting research to provide independent scientific advice for EU policy. Focussed on various research areas aligned with EU priorities, the JRC excels in delivering scientific evidence for…

The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has brought about extensive education policy reforms towards inclusive education in many countries around the world. At the same time, it has been observed that intergovernmental organisations and non-state actors have been extensively involved in establishing these…

Decentralising education is a much-debated topic among policy researchers and practitioners though not often from a Foucauldian-influenced CDA perspective. This article's specific focus is education decentralisation in Benin, arguing that the policy is framed by a modernist development understanding and reflects the country's (neo-) colonial…

The education sector in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has experienced a surge of neoliberal reforms over the past few decades, primarily led by the World Bank (WB). One of these reform agendas has been to "decrease standards" or "destandardize" educational responsibilities and policies by devolving educational…

Background: The canonical view of expert legitimacy in policymaking links it to objectivity and autonomy from politics. Yet, in practice such 'epistemic gains' stemming from the separation of facts and values are problematic, as expert advice inherently combines political and technical considerations. Aims and objectives: This article addresses…

In the countries that receive aid from donor agencies, the educational policymaking process is not straightforward because the power and interest of donors contradict with national contexts. This qualitative study aims to investigate how educational policy decisions in Nepal, a country that receives foreign aid for its educational projects, are…

This article responds to recent calls to investigate the role of agents and the connections between layers of agency in the development and implementation of language policy and planning (LPP). Using a corpus linguistic and discursive approach to language policy, we identify interventions made in plenary sessions by Secretary-Generals and Member…

The article investigates how and when the two first movers in knowledge-based regulation -- the OECD and the World Bank -- developed policy brokerage as an instrument of global governance in the education sector. We also examine how their target clientele -- national governments -- responds to this instrument. Given the surplus of research…

The article seeks to refine two central concepts in scholarly accounts of national policy responses to international data: 'selectivity' and 'instrumentalisation'. It does so by broadening, firstly, the empirical focus of research to include forms of international data other than the performance data of global learning metrics and international…

International organisations' importance in education policy has been growing in recent years. They have been able to promote their role by providing data and interpreting it through international assessments and guidance, and by highlighting some countries or regions as benchmarks for global improvement, performance, and efficiency. International…

This paper theorizes the affective and moral grounding of "best practice" policymaking, particularly how best practice operates as an affective regime that encourages certain affective norms. To illustrate this, the author takes up the example of best practices promoted by the CoE's "Digital Citizenship Education Handbook" for…

Recent analyses of education policy have used the concept of the assemblage to explain how the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's education work contributes to global policy convergence and new forms of policy mobility. These analyses often use Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of assemblage to designate relations between things…

By following the qualitative evidence synthesis, this article reports on how education policy is made in Sudan by considering the contextual, socio-economical background of Sudanese education in the pre post-colonial era. Out of 39 published and unpublished documents, 33 documents were synthesized to answer these research questions: (1) who is…