Education for the Knowledge Economy (EKE) refers to World Bank assistance aimed at helping developing countries equip themselves with the highly skilled and flexible human capital needed to compete effectively in today’s dynamic global markets.
Support for EKE thus encompasses a wide range of efforts, comprising:
- Secondary education to lay the foundation of a healthy, skilled, and agile labor force
- Tertiary education to create the intellectual capacity to produce and utilize knowledge
- Lifelong learning to promote learning throughout the life cycle and help countries adapt to changing market demands
- Science, technology, and innovation capacity to continually assess, adapt, and apply new technologies
- Information and communications technology (ICT) to multiply access to learning opportunities to those who need them most (such as out-of-school youth and children with disability) and to improve the quality of teaching and learning outcomes
- Cross-cutting efforts to rethink the role of the state away from sole provider to enabler and quality assurer, identifying options for sustainable financing, strengthening labor market linkages, and addressing the political economy of reforms.