Education: On account of the COVID-19 pandemic, 65 percent of low and lower-middle income countries cut their education budgets, while only 33 percent of high and upper-middle income did so, according to a report by the World Bank.
Compiled in collaboration with UNESCO‘s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, the report said that the current levels of government spending in low and lower-middle income countries are short of what is required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In order to understand the short-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education budgets, information was collected for a sample of 29 countries across all regions. The sample represents about 54 percent of the world’s school and university aged population.
The sample includes three low-income countries (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Uganda); 14 lower-middle income countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Tanzania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); 10 upper-middle income nations (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Jordan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Turkey); and two high-income countries (Chile, Panama).
The report pointed out that responding to the COVID-19 crisis required additional spending to help schools comply with the necessary measures needed to control contagion, and fund new programmes that would make up for the losses in learning that students experienced while their schools were closed.
“It is not clear that countries that have seen a decline in their education budget will be able to cover these costs increased during the pandemic alongside the regular increases in funding needed to support growing school-age populations. Despite the urgent need for adequate funding to allow school systems to reopen safely, about half of the countries in the sample cut their education budgets. This scarcely bodes well for the future, when macroeconomic conditions are expected to worsen”, said the report.
The report also pointed out that the pandemic has resulted in a large and negative income- and health-shock for many households. This is important since household education spending as a share of GDP has increased in low-income countries and families contribute significantly to the costs of education.
Even before the pandemic, Indian schools saw high dropout rates and declining enrolment rates. Read this article to know more about it.