Learning from elsewhere: A hundred years of policy learning revisited

Abstract This article discusses four significant changes in lesson drawing, policy learning, or policy borrowing. Thematically , the issue of educational expansion has preoccupied policy-makers worldwide for the past hundred years. They have been eager to learn from experiences elsewhere, initially how others decentralized the finance and management of schooling to enable universal access and later how they addressed the fallout of decentralization reforms, notably inequity and quality erosion. Regarding the modalities of policy learning, the ‘travelling observer’ has been replaced by myriad digital platforms that propagate best practices and ‘actionable’ policy recommendations. As a consequence of the decentralization of governance and finance and, in some countries, structural adjustment policies, the drivers of policy borrowing have shifted from ministries of education to a wide range of stakeholders, including ministries of finance, offices of presidents and prime ministers, and private foundations and businesses. Finally, changes in the objects of emulation or reference societies reflect a spatial reconfiguration of a special sort. Along with countries in the same geopolitical or cultural space, the education systems of league leaders in international large-scale assessments, such as Finland, Korea, and Singapore, have become objects of policy attraction for both OECD and non-OECD countries.