International Aid and Textbook Reform in Post-Soviet Armeni

In my research, I explore the role of international organizations, the World Bank in particular, in education reform in post-Soviet Armenia. My project highlights the issue of textbook development in the country. Despite over twenty years of international involvement in the Armenian education sector, the country's textbooks remain of very poor quality. I argue that the interconnected nature of education reform has been a significant factor in the protraction of the textbook development process in Armenia. I further argue that the World Bank, while a significant contributor to the country's textbook development, failed to pay appropriate attention to two issues that have further stalled the process, the lack of an adequate textbook selection procedure and the absence of guidelines relating to gender and other forms of bias. I conclude with recommendations for further development in the sector.