What can we learn from the cost and expenditure patterns of public spending on primary education in developing countries? What are countries with high enrolments doing that countries with low enrolments are not? Is it just about spending priorities?

Recent research by the Institute of Development Studies analyses public spending on education in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia, with a particular focus upon primary schooling. It shows that the achievement of high enrolment ratios has been associated not only with high priority assigned to public expenditures on primary schooling, but also with the presence of modest unit costs. It concludes that schooling for all (SFA) is achievable provided governments are willing to reform both private and public costs, improve efficiency, and give expenditures on primary schooling their proper priority.

This article makes a clear distinction between universal primary education (UPE), where the primary school system has the capacity to enrol all children of primary school age, and SFA, where all eligible children are enrolled in school of at least a minimum acceptable quality.

First, the article reviews the recent cost and expenditure characteristics of education spending in SSA and South Asia. Second, it analyses spending on primary education among SSA countries which have yet to achieve UPE. These non-UPE countries are divided into two groups: those in which the per pupil cost of primary schooling (the unit cost) is low relative to the regional average (‘low-cost’ SSA countries); and those in which it is high (‘high-cost’ SSA countries). Expenditure patterns of SSA countries that have achieved UPE are also spilt and analysed in this way. It concludes by looking at the feasibility of achieving SFA in Ethiopia, Guinea, and Tanzania.

Research findings include:

• Unit costs and the proportion of GNP allocated to primary schooling are less in South Asia than in SSA. South Asia has a considerably smaller school-age population relative to the total population, however, making education easier to finance.
• Non-UPE low-cost SSA countries allocate a smaller proportion of GNP to education for given enrolment ratios, and can afford to increase expenditures to hasten the move toward UPE and SFA.
• Non-UPE high-cost SSA countries tend to have lower enrolment ratios than other countries, despite the allocation of a greater proportion of GNP to primary schooling. More than 4 per cent of GNP would need to be allocated to primary education in these countries to secure UPE in the absence of other cost and efficiency reforms.
• Countries which have achieved UPE tend to have higher GNP per capita than the average for SSA. They generally have lower unit costs, however, and are spending a greater proportion of GNP on primary schooling than the average for SSA.
• Cross-country data suggests that an affordable allocation of public expenditure to primary schooling would be around 3 per cent of GNP. Most African countries are spending about half of that, or less.
• In many countries, if school quality is to increase so as to support demand and reach SFA, unit costs may have to rise initially.

SFA can be achieved – even in countries which are among the poorest, and which have the lowest school enrolments – provided governments are willing to:

• Enhance commitment to public spending on primary schooling.
• Introduce a range of efficiency, distributional and gender-focused reforms, so as to lower the private and public unit costs of provision and to change their incidence.

Source(s):
‘Achieving Schooling for All: Budgetary Expenditures on Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia’, World Development, Vol. 28, No. 11, pp. 1927-1944, C. Colclough and S. Al-Samarrai, 2000

Funded by: DFID and Rockefeller Foundation, part of the research was conducted under the auspices of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), 1995-1997

id21 Research Highlight: 11 May 2001

Further Information:
Samer Al-Samarrai
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9RE, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1273 606261
Fax: +44 (0) 1273 621202/691647
Contact the contributor: s.al-samarrai@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK

Other related links:
FAWE aims at ensuring that girls have access to school

CfBT assists governments to implement reform and schools to run efficiently

EDC brings researchers and practitioners together to create better conditions for learning

The World Bank focuses on 'More for Primary Schools'

IIEP advances training and research in educational planning, management and administration