Why are the bi-lateral agencies abandoning their long-established programmes in Education in favour of those in Governance? Do recipient governments really know what they are letting themselves in for when they subscribe to Governance initiatives in development? Is Governance a bureaucratic trip into a politically correct wilderness of blandness and mediocrity? This paper seeks to define why Governance is superseding Education in Development in Southeast Asia. It investigates the maturity and experience of governance policy and personnel. It looks at the move away from a project approach, where education, training, transparency and deliverables are important, and the move towards globalisation, sector-wide approaches run by generalists, and the resulting loss of quality and consensus. It describes the need for recipient governments to become pro-active and focus on what they really want, and if that happens to be Education or Health, rather than Governance, then to establish their own precise stance on the issues concerned. It quotes the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training's lack of a clear language policy as an example of how, if you do not 'choose it'you'll 'lose it'.
