From September 16 to 24, 2014, Professor Eduardo Bustillo, the international educational consultant of the World Bank, brought to IICE his lecture series titled “Education and International Development” in Room 723, Yingdong Building, Beijing Normal University. The presentation was moderated by associate Professor Liu Min and attended by international master and doctoral students of the only-English-speaking program as well as some master students from IICE.
Professor Bustillo, who got his PhD in sociology at University of Illinois, America, was the manager of the educational department of the World Bank in East Asia and Pacific Region, the manager of the educational department in Latin America and the Caribbean, the coordinator of the Human Development Project in China, and the manager of the Human Development Project in Uganda and Tanzania. Now he is a visiting professor in Georgetown University, America. His research fields mainly include sociology, economic development and the analysis and evaluation of development project.
Professor Bustillo’s lecture series consist of four lectures. In his first lecture “Education Investment and Development”, he explained the importance of the education investment, some basic theories education investment (such as the human capital theory) and the economic analysis. Then he shared his 37 tips gained from his 37-year-work experience at educational department. In his second lecture “Educational System Reform”, Professor Bustillo talked about the investment in educational system and how to make the investment more significant. Besides, he illustrated the cooperation of public education and private education as well as the accountability in education, combined with cases in China, South America and Africa. His third lecture was titled “Quality and Equity in Education”. In the part of quality of education, Professor Bustillo first introduced the international test and its influencing factors. Then he analyzed the education evaluation system and focused on the experience of Latin America’s improving the quality of education evaluation system. Finally, he introduced the experience of educational evaluation and accountability in Uruguay, Colima, Mexico and America, from which experience and inspiration were got. In the part of equity in education, Professor Bustillo mainly told the dimensionality and decisive factors of unfair education as well as the intrinsic value and instrument value of educational gender and racial equality. In his fourth lecture “Towards Employment and Opportunities”, Professor Bustillo mainly talked about four issues. First, he reviewed the basic concept of labor economics, and discussed the influence of education on labor supply and demand. Second, he talked about how education helps to improve employment. His third point was on unemployment and solutions. Finally, he introduced 10 skills which the future labor force need to posses.
Professor Bustillo’s humorous speech was warmly received by the students. At the end of each lecture, Professor Bustillo had an in-depth exchanges and discussions about the related issues with the students, who benefited a lot.