65 pc low, lower-middle income countries slashed edu budgets after pandemic: World Bank report
NEW DELHI: Education budgets were cut by 65 per cent of low and lower-middle income countries after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic while only 33 per cent of high and upper-middle income countries did so, according to a report by the World Bank.
The report, compiled in collaboration with UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, said the current levels of government spending in low and lower-middle income countries fall short of those required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “In order to understand the short-term impact of the pandemic on education budgets, information was collected for a sample of 29 countries. The sample represents about 54 per cent of the world’s school and university aged population. The information collected was then verified with World Bank country teams,” the report said. “Responding to the crisis requires additional spending to adapt schools for compliance with measures to control contagion and to fund programs to make up for the losses in students experienced while schools were closed,” it added. The sample includes 3 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 countries have education shares below 10% and are likely to have other main financing sources besides budget assigned by the central government: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Russia,” the report stated.
“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,” it said. “Households in low and lower-middle income countries tend to contribute a greater share of the total spending than those in upper-middle and high-income,” the report pointed out.