Recently, World Bank president James Wolfensohn marked a sea change in thinking about higher education in the developing world, endorsing the final report of the Task Force on Higher Education and Society, on which we were fortunate to serve as cochairs.

Mr. Wolfensohn committed the World Bank to redoubling its efforts to support higher education, sending an important signal to the rest of the development community. "It is impossible," he said, "to have a system that functions without an appropriate and deep commitment to higher education."

Education is vital to the prospects of developing countries. The poor, by definition, have very few resources. First-rate education and health care are vital investments in the assets they do control: their own labor, enterprise, and ingenuity. Educated, healthy people do not need to be rescued from poverty. They rescue themselves.

But the stakes are rising. The knowledge economy demands highly specialized skills. It also moves at a faster pace. People must now learn how to learn, or they will be left behind. Primary and secondary schools aim to provide students with a strong grounding in the 3 Rís and other vital skills, but higher education offers the depth and flexibility people need to thrive in the modern workplace. It also promotes human development by enhancing the life of the mind and creates the freedom to pursue knowledge for its own sake.

The case for higher education in developing countries may seem straightforward, but it has traditionally been contentious. Development orthodoxy holds that investment in basic education yields higher returns than money spent further up the system. Higher education is thus a luxury, runs the argument, that developing countries cannot afford.

If this argument was ever true, it is no longer. The issue is not primary and secondary education versus higher education, but rather achieving the right mix among the three levels. As leaders, entrepreneurs, and administrators, highly educated people are enormously important to social and economic development. Investment in higher education is thus strongly in the public interest. Sustainable poverty reduction will not be achieved without a renaissance in the higher education systems of developing countries.

We are not talking about systems that concentrate exclusively on professional training, either. We argue that some of the most promising students should receive a first-class general education. To overcome their serious problems, developing countries need to liberally apply a vital resource--brainpower--not money.

Ultimately, this concerns helping some of the worldís fledgling democracies to thrive. As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has pointed out, democracy matters most to the poorest. No famine has ever occurred (or been allowed to happen) in a society where leaders must listen to their citizens.

The problems of the developing world are indeed serious. Demand is rising fast, but higher education systems are expanding chaotically. Low-quality institutions mushroom in the private sector, while public-sector provision suffers from underfunding, lack of vision, poor management, and low morale.

The solution demands a holistic approach and a strategic vision of what can be achieved. We advocate "planned diversity" as a third way between central planning and chaotic expansion. Both public and private sectors must be involved in a system that uses the marketís energy but recognizes the areas where the market cannot deliver: most notably in the areas of basic science, the humanities, and access for the disadvantaged.

We see the stateís most important role as a guarantor of standards. If talented but poor individuals are denied access by the system, then the state must intervene. It must also fight to improve the current lamentable standards of governance in many countries and to boost capacity in the vital areas of science and technology. When resources are limited, they must be spent well, not wasted by demoralized faculty, teaching out-of-date curricula to poorly motivated students.

Institutions should specialize. Research universities remain important in all but the smallest and poorest countries. But other institutions should not be treated as poor cousins. Centers of excellence can be developed throughout the systemónot simply reserved for an educational elite. Distance learning provides the most exciting challenge to the status quo, especially as it becomes clear that many remote parts of the world will have Internet access long before they enjoy decent roads.

The Task Force on Higher Education and Society brought together 14 educational experts from 13 countries with the intention to start an ongoing debate, not to answer all the questions. We firmly believe that rapid progress can be made, but only with political will, new resources, and people prepared to contemplate and develop imaginative solutions.

At the reportís launch, Wolfensohn asked why we needed such a document when what is being said is absolutely straightforward. "We need it," he said, "because weíve forgotten it, because we donít give higher education the weighting that is required." We wholeheartedly agree.

Author's Note: This article is reprinted, with permission, from the Times Higher Education Supplement, London, UK.