enrollment ratios of less than 90 percent ii 1985. This group is selected because "these are the countries whose populations are the most disadvantaged, in terms of the goals of Education For All." Seldom do two reports provide figures for the same indicator, the same year, and the same group of countries. Often the selection is restricted by data availability.

2.11 Time-Lags: Adjustment policies are relatively new (the first SAL was in 1980, the first Education SECAL in 1986). Education has a long gestation period, and the time lag before the impacts of adjustment-instigated changes become evident may be significant. In many cases the impacts of adjustment are still working their way through the education cycle. Many adverse effcts of adjustment are said to be temporary results of transition, and the long-term effects are expccted to be positive. Time lags are also evident in data collection eftorts: UNESCO data (the principal source for .:rosscountry comparisons) are currently available only through 1987, and even these figures are incomplete for specific countries or years. Only 45 of the 70 adjustment borrowers (annex 1) received Sias or SECALs before 1987. UNESCO data thus do not provide any evidence on the education sector during adjustment for over one-third of all adjusting countries. Many of the other countries had not completed the adjustment process by 1987, and analysis of the available data can therefore only be incomplete.

2.12 Causality: The literature makes few attempts to establish causality between adjustment policies and changes in the education sector. Did the decline in public spending result from externally-induced recession and structural problems, poor management, or adjustment policies designed to offset economic difficulties? What is the counterfactual, i.e., were conditions better or worse than if the World Bank had not supported implementation of the adjustment process? Sahn (1989) states that adjustment lending often occurs in the face of severe economic crises that would precipitate radical changes in public spending even without the typical SAL conditionality. According to Chapelier and Tabatabai (1989), many countries that needed economic stabilization and adjustment (particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa) had already been through a protracted period of mounting economic stress, during which social services deteriorated, before they undertook adjustment programs. Most sources do not separate the impacts of deteriorating economic conditions (recession, inflation, and the debt crisis) from those of changes in macroeconomic policies to address these problems.

2.13 Another variable influencing the education sector, independent of adjustment policies, is govemment commitment. Griffin and Knight (1989) argue that given the need for adjustment, it was easier and more expedient to reduce expenditures on human development than on other central government budget items. Governments' willingness to allocate resources to education changed during the 1980s as a result of increasing unemployment and migration of the educated, qualification escalation unrelated to job skills, and uncertainty about the contribution of education to increased productivity. According to Lewin (1987), changing government commitment and tighter budgets outweighed pressure to increase education investment from growing social demand fueled by population growth, continued manpower shortages, the power of interest groups, and the ideology of free and universal education provision. These statements, however, are not supported with specific evidence.

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