This study provides a discursive analysis of World Bank policy documents in order to reveal the stark omission of a rights-based approach to education, while highlighting instead the support of an economic-instrumentalist approach. Plausible explanations are provided to shed light on this exclusion, including the feasibility critique of education as a right, and the Bank's limited institutional mandate. However, the rationales are presented as unsound and unacceptable justifications for the omission. By drawing on Amartya Sen's theoretical work on human rights and development policy frameworks, this study concludes by arguing for the Bank to integrate into their mandate a conception of education as a human right.