The present work analyses the role of the international organizations in the orientation of educational reforms and reforms of professional formation/training taking place, in particular, in Latin America countries and in the Caribbean Islands from the beginning of the 1990's on. This article is organized into four sections: in the first one, we situated the public policies in analysis in the context of social reforms during the 1990's; in the second one, we present the empirical foundation of our research on which this work is based established through documental analysis; in the third one, we critically analyze the educational proposals of the World Bank and of CEPAL (The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Islands) presented in the previous section; and finally, in the fourth and last part, we dedicate ourselves to the synthesis of the elements of our criticism, followed by the final remarks in which we recognize the analyzed proposals as strategic actions of the international organizations directed towards the redefinition of the role of the State, of the public policies and of the formation of the subject in order to comply with the requirements of the international division of work and of the capital valorization within the context of the political economy of globalization. (Contains 2 tables and 11 footnotes.)