Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

001CHAPTER 42Education for All Global Monitoring ReportFigure 4.10: Only a few donors give priority to basic educationDirect aid commitments to education by level, 2006–2007 average, and change in the share of post-secondary education between 1999–2000 and 2006–2007IDAECAsDFAfDFUNICEFFranceGermanyNetherlandsJapanUnited KingdomUnited StatesSpainCanadaAustraliaNorwayBelgiumAustriaSwedenIrelandPortugalNew ZealandSwitzerlandItalyGreeceDenmarkFinlandLuxembourg0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40Constant 2007 US$ millions Change between 1999-2000 and 2006-2007Basic Secondary Post-secondary Level unspecifiedin share of post-secondary educationin direct aid to education (percentage points)IDAECAsDFAfDFUNICEFFranceGermanyNetherlandsJapanUnited KingdomUnited StatesSpainCanadaAustraliaNorwayBelgiumAustriaSwedenIrelandPortugalNew ZealandSwitzerlandItalyGreeceDenmarkFinlandLuxembourgNotes: Direct aid to education falls into four subcategories: basic, secondary, post-secondary and ‘level unspecified’. Aid to education not allocated to a particularlevel of education is recorded as ‘level unspecified’. AfDF = African Development Fund, AsDF = Asian Development Fund, EC = European Commission, IDA = International Development Association.Source: OECD-DAC (2009d).Promotion ofhigher educationoften entails highlevels of aidspending in thedonor countryincreased the share of aid commitments directedto post-secondary education. Meanwhile, someother donors have moved in the opposite direction.Spain is one example (Box 4.4).Promotion of higher education often entails highlevels of aid spending in the donor country. The EFAGlobal Monitoring Report 2009 critically examinedaccounting practices associated with the reportingof post-secondary aid levels. In the case of Franceand Germany, more than four in every five dollarsof the aid reported to the OECD-DAC takes the formof ‘imputed student costs’. This essentially meansthat the estimated costs of teaching students fromdeveloping countries in French and German tertiaryinstitutions are counted as aid to the students’countries. In Germany, ¤701 million of the¤714 million allocated to higher education in theaid programme is spent in this way, representingaround 68% of German aid to education (GermanFederal Ministry for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment, 2009). While counting domesticspending on higher education as aid is consistentwith OECD reporting rules, civil society groupsin both countries and some French senatorshave regularly contested its legitimacy.Such criticism does not imply that support forhigher levels of education is unimportant. Ashighlighted in Chapter 2, many donors haveneglected technical and vocational education andtraining. An exception is Germany: building on itsextensive experience at home, Germany spent¤77 million in 2007 supporting vocational educationand is one of the largest donors to the subsectorin the world. It finances the reform and expansionof vocational education in countries including Egypt,Ethiopia, Mozambique and Uganda. As part of a230