EDUCATION FINANCE WATCH 2024 © Dominic Chavez/World Bank The Education Finance Watch Key Findings about Education Financing: (EFW) is a collaborative effort between the World Bank, the 1 Total education spending has increased, but significant Global Education Monitoring gaps persist. Funding in many low-income countries (LICs) (GEM) Report, and the UNESCO and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) remains low. In 2022, LICs and LMICs, on average, spent just US$55 and US$309 per child1 Institute for Statistics (UIS). The annually respectively — far below what is needed to ensure quality EFW aims to provide an analysis education and address learning crisis. of trends, patterns, and issues in education financing around the In LICs and LMICs financial resources for education are limited and often world. used inefficiently Government education Countries must invest more— spending per 7,730 school-age individual 8,837 and better—in their education (constant 2022 US 8,532 dollars) by income systems: group, 2010-2022 US$, 2022 constant To improve learning HIC 1,273 outcomes in the wake UMIC LMIC of the digital and green 958 1,271 LIC transitions. 309 316 278 To meet national and 42 57 55 global education goals. 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Source: Author estimates using the EFW 2024 database. Note: The number is the mean of government education spending per child by income group. Estimates of spending as To ensure inclusive, a percentage of GDP include interpolated values to fill in missing data and ensure that there is a comparable sample of countries in all periods. equitable and quality education for all. 1 EFW 2024 uses “per child” referring to those aged between 5 and 24 years old. HIC: high-income countries, UMIC: upper-middle-income countries E D U C AT I O N F I N A N C E W AT C H 2 0 2 4 2 Countries must focus on increasing the adequacy, efficiency, and equity of their educational expenditures. Financial resources are often used inefficiently. Governments must focus on better public financial management, improving school management and teacher performance, strengthening governance, and directing resources toward cost-effective policies and programs. 3 Aid for education in LICs has increased in absolute terms but decreased in relative proportion. Aid accounts for about 12.2 percent of education funding in LICs. Yet, the share of aid allocated to education has decreased from 9.3 percent in 2019 to 7.6 percent in 2022, as donors shifted priorities to other sectors. © Salahaldeen Nadir/World Bank 4 Interest payments on public debt outpacing education spending, posing serious concerns. Some countries are now spending nearly as much per capita on debt servicing as they are on education.2 The growing fiscal burden, particularly in Africa and South Asia, is squeezing education budgets. Poorer countries’ interest payments have been growing faster than their education spending a. Public expenditure per capita on interest and b. Nominal change in public expenditure per capita (US$) education in 2022 (US$) in selected countries between 2010-2012 and 2020-2022 in selected countries Interest Interest 67 Education 39 Education Republic Republic of Congo 78 -32 of Congo 166 127 Ghana Ghana 64 -31 30 23 Lao PDR Lao PDR 29 18 91 53 Zambia Zambia 52 -15 0 50 100 150 200 -60 -30 0 30 60 90 120 150 US$ US$ Source: Author estimates using EFW2024 database and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) data. 5 Timely data is critical to inform forward-thinking policymaking. To maintain a clear global picture of education financing trends, it is imperative for countries to report their education funding data in a timely and consistent manner, with © Maria Fleischmann/World Bank more disaggregation. 2 In EFW 2024, “per capita” refers to the total population. In other words, a country’s per capita debt servicing burden is determined by dividing the total debt servicing burden by the country’s total population.