Wishful Thinking and World Bank Money: Exploring the Capacity to Build Social Goods within Conditionalities and Corporatization

Abstract

A significant critique of the World Bank’s problematic role in public higher education is that through its conditionalities it paves the way for privatization and a deterioration of public education systems. In Sri Lankan universities, as in other countries, programmes in higher education using such loan monies became entry points for corporatized discourses and practices, changing how universities perceive themselves. In such instances, institutions and individuals may find that the space to resist or change such discourses is negligible. This paper examines the possibilities available within such a corporatized space for a venture that is antithetical to such corporatized discourses. The case study for this is an accessibility programme supported by World Bank loans. Through interviews and text analysis I explore how recipients of loan monies work within conditionalities and corporatizing discourses to produce what could be called a social good.