people and planet

20
National education accounts.............................................................................................342
Improving financial data..................................................................................................... 346
While the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development includes three targets related to
means of implementation, remarkably, none of these
refers to education financing. This partly reflects a
perceived lack of an education expenditure target
that would be appropriate for all countries. But it
also reflects concerns that spending volume is
unrelated to effectiveness and efficiency: Critics point
out that countries with similar levels of spending in
terms of income per capita produce widely different
educational outcomes.
However, the 2015 EFA Global Monitoring Report
(GMR) argued that the lack of equitable and adequate
financing was a key reason why the world fell short
of achieving the EFA goals in 2015 – and that where
progress accelerated, there was clear evidence of
increased allocations to education, usually from a
very low starting point.
Regardless of the absence of a financing target,
comprehensive and regular education financing data
are a prerequisite both for effective education sector
planning and for monitoring the commitment of all
partners to the global education agenda. This section
focuses on the need for better information on the
volume and composition of education financing. Gaps in
data are so wide that simple national, regional and global
trends cannot be ascertained. This may also be one
reason why stronger links between education financing
and outcomes have not yet been established.
The section begins by proposing an overall framework
for capturing all education financing flows. It then
discusses gaps in data on public expenditure, aid and
household spending, along with recent initiatives to
address these gaps.
NATIONAL EDUCATION
ACCOUNTS
National and global debates on education financing are
incomplete. For example, in poor countries they tend
to focus either on what the government spends or on
what the country receives from external sources – but
they rarely consider how the two flows combine and
affect each other. In some countries, education ministry
expenditure is only part of what a government may
spend on education, with other ministries, lower tiers of
government and autonomous agencies also channelling
funding. Even if information on the other sources exists,
it may be compiled using different classifications.
Another problem is the lack of evidence on the share
of total education spending funded by households. For
example, the 2015 GMR showed that if government
and household expenditure were added up, households
contributed a much larger share of total expenditure on
education in poorer countries than in richer countries.
This finding has major implications for equity, yet does
not receive the attention it deserves.
The lack of equitable and adequate finance was a key reason
why the world fell short of achieving the EFA goals in 2015
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342
CHAPTER 20 | FINANCE