UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Education investment and commitment: Education investment and commitment: reassessing the international benchmarksreassessing the international benchmarks
Albert MotivansUNESCO Institute for Statistics
IWGE 2010, Stockholm7 June 2010
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
UIS and global education finance dataUIS and global education finance data
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics:
Collects national domestic finance data annually Disseminates data three times a year on the UIS Data Centre
which is revised retrospectively based on new GDP estimates Uses and interprets data
• Impact of financial crisis on education budgets (2009)• Financing education in Africa (with Pole de Dakar and IIEP in 2010)
Provides technical assistance/data quality diagnoses • Sustainable reporting of financing data in sub-Saharan Africa
(sector review follow-up)• Data quality assessment framework (DQAF)
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
The global distribution of The global distribution of education spending, 2007education spending, 2007
United States 726.9 TOTAL 784.1
Arab States (15/20) 88.1
Central/Eastern Europe (18/21)
219.7
Central Asia (7/9) 8.7
Latin America/ Caribbean (35/41)
260.1
South/West Asia (7/9) 153.7
Sub-Saharan Africa (38/45) 53.8
Public education expenditure (billion PPP$)
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2010
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
The investment to educate a childThe investment to educate a child
Czech Rep. 2,508
Kuwait 2,618
Seychelles 2,803
Estonia 2,896
Poland 3,041
Rep. Korea 3,910
Hungary 3,978
One year of primary school, PPP$
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2010
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Risks in benchmarking public Risks in benchmarking public education spending education spending
Crude measures of macro-level inputs Missing a big part of the picture where household
contributions are not counted Likewise miss the contributions from local and
regional governments Relying only on relative measures one can lose sight
of absolute needs Missing the underlying story of the conditions that
influence spending/costs
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Accounting for national contextsAccounting for national contexts
Overall proportion of and growth rates of the school age population
Coverage of the education system • even by single grades!
The roles of government and societies• Redistributive or direct channel for families
Volume of education provision• years of primary schooling, hours of instruction
Quality of education provision• teaching standards, teaching/learning environment
Efficiency of education provision• repetition, retention and completion
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Different levels of capacity and demand Different levels of capacity and demand imply different resource needsimply different resource needs
YemenGambia
AfghanistanUAE
ChadSenegalPNG
MaliEritrea
Cote d'Ivoire
SudanBurkina FasoCAR
Djibouti
Brazil
Sierra Leone
Madagascar
MalawiRwanda
GabonNepal
Equat. Guinea
Belize
Sao TomeCambodia
Lesotho
Guyana
Guinea
Congo
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Primary school age population (1995=100)
Pri
ma
ry G
ER
20
05
declining population increasing population
Russian Fed.
GuatemalaZambia
Group AGroup AGroup BGroup B
Group CGroup C
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
The traditional benchmarksThe traditional benchmarks
Investment/cost• Per pupil public expenditure (PPP$)• Per pupil public expenditure as a share of GDP per capita
Effort/commitment• Public education expenditure as a share of national
income (GDP) or per capita• Public education expenditure as a share of government
budget (TGE)• Share of education expenditure by source of funds
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Investment/costInvestment/cost Per pupil expenditure is calculated as the annual expenditure
(recurrent or total) divided by the number of pupils
Countries range from 2% to 25% and less than PPP$100 to more than PPP$15,000
Often presented as ‘unit costs’ but only represents part of total costs; better described as public investment per pupil
Two complementary measures• Relative (as a % of GDP per capita) allows cross-national comparisons• Absolute measures (in PPP$) allow assessment of its sufficiency
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Relative and absolute measures of per primary Relative and absolute measures of per primary pupil public expenditure in SS Africa, 2008pupil public expenditure in SS Africa, 2008
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2010
1,386
1,021
806
461
346 314263
162 156 132 110 94 83 81 77 76 75 72 61 51 39
0
400
800
1,200
1,600
Exp
en
dit
ure
in
PP
P$
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Exp
en
dit
ure
as a
% o
f G
DP
per
cap
itaPPP $
% GDP per Capita
Note: -1 data refer to 2007; -2 data refer to 2006 Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Effort/commitment, IEffort/commitment, I
The share of national income (GDP) invested in education – often interpreted as a measure of commitment to education
Countries range from less than 1% to 15%
Often misapplied, e.g., ‘5-6% of GDP should be spent on education’ cited (based on OECD)
Not always a good measure of government ‘effort’ because of differences in duration of schooling, coverage of education and other national contexts
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Effort/commitment, IIEffort/commitment, II
• The share of public expenditure invested in education – also interpreted as a measure of commitment to education
• Countries range from less than 10% to 30%
• Closer to commitment in that it represents the actual government budget constraints
• Level highly dependent upon the role of governments and societies; whether governments play a redistributive role or families and communities are more directly responsible for the education of their children
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Comparing national ‘effort’ fromComparing national ‘effort’ fromthe perspective of fiscal spacethe perspective of fiscal space
Cuba
Lesotho
Djibouti-1
MoldovaBotswana-1
Maldives
Swaziland
Iceland-1
BurundiTunisia-1
Cyprus-1
Timor-Leste
VanuatuTanzania
BarbadosNorway-1
Sweden-1
Kyrgyzstan-1Namibia
Israel-1
Belgium-1Guyana-1
Saudi Arabia
Cape Verde
Morocco
USA-1
Ethiopia-1
Samoa
Austria-1
Viet NamUkraine-1
Yemen
Belarus-1
South Africa
Senegal**
Belize-1
Costa Rica
Latvia-1
Poland-1
Thailand
Dominica
Côte d'IvoireBurkina Faso-1
Malaysia-1
Romania-1Spain-1
Italy-1
Algeria
Bulgaria-1
Rwanda
Paraguay-1
Colombia
MaliNepal
Egypt
Togo-1
El Salvador
Slovakia-1Anguilla
TajikistanHong Kong SAR
Bahrain
Georgia
Pakistan
CameroonMadagascar
Singapore
Liberia
Peru
Philippines-1BangladeshLao PDR
Macao, China
Lebanon
Azerbaijan
Guinea
Cambodia-1
CAR-1
UAE
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Expenditure on education as percentage of total public expenditure
To
tal p
ub
lic e
xp
en
dit
ure
as
a p
erc
en
tag
e o
f G
DP
> 7.0
6.0-7.0
5.0-6.0
2.5-5.0
<2.5
Note: -1 data refer to 2007Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Hig
her s
hare
of p
ublic
sp
endi
ng
Higher share of education spending
UNESCOINSTITUTE for STATISTICS
Developing the measurement agendaDeveloping the measurement agenda
Improve relevance of benchmark measures• Explore grade or school-year based measures of
investments/costs• Capture the full picture of investments/costs
Improve comparative frameworks for measuring household contributions to education
• Reach consensus on what represents an education cost in different societies/economies
Data/indicators that are needed to address emerging issues...open for discussion
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