Informed Dialogue

FERNANDO REIMERS is a Policy Fellow (Education Specialist) at the Harvard Institute for International Development. On leave from Harvard he is currently serving as senior education specialist at the World Bank. He is coauthor (with D. Warwick) of Hope or Despair: Learning in Pakistan's Primary Schools (Praeger, 1995) and author of other books and articles on education and development. He has advised governments, universities and international agencies in 10 countries in Latin America, as well as in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan.NOEL McGINN is Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University and Fellow (emeritus) at the Harvard Institute for International Development. He is coauthor (with R. G. King, R. Guerra, and D. Kline) of The Provincial Universities of Mexico (Praeger, 1979) and editor of Crossing Lines: Research and Policy Networks for Developing Country Educators (Praeger, 1996). He has published many other books and articles on education and development. He has advised governments, universities, and research centers and international agencies in 24 countries in all continents on issues of education policy. He was the principal investigator of Project BRIDGES, a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development to research the determinants of student achievement in developing countries.

• Introduction Concepts and Issues Research Utilization: Why It's Important, Why It's an Issue, Why It's Difficult What Do We Mean by Informed Policymaking? Why Education Policies Are So Difficult to Inform Approaches to Informing Policy for Education Utilization as Using Pre-Cooked Conclusions Utilization Stimulated by Providing Decision Makers with Data Informing Policy by Constructing Knowledge Case Studies of Use of Information in Policymaking Namibia: Consultation for Change, the Etosha Conference Conducting an Education Sector Assessment in Egypt Conducting an Education Policy Survey in Honduras Conducting an Education Policy Survey in Colombia Conducting a Participatory Sector Assessment in El Salvador Policy Dialogue as Organizational Learning in Paraguay Fitting It All Together: A Model to Inform Policy with Research-based Knowledge Bibliography Index