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id21 viewpoints Challenging
the IMF on education: why caps on teachers need to be lifted Update to this id21 viewpoints, June 2007 David
Archer, Head of International Education
at ActionAid, looks at how the IMF has contributed to teacher shortages
in developing countries. UNESCO estimates that 18 million new teachers are needed globally between now and 2015 to get all children into school in more or less acceptable class sizes (of no more than 40 children to 1 teacher). At least 2.4 million new teachers will be needed in sub-Saharan Africa. It is clear that massive new investments need to be made. But it is equally clear that this growth in spending is unlikely to be achieved according to new research by ActionAid: 'Confronting the Contradictions: The IMF Wage Bill Caps and the Case for Teachers'. This research shows that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposes conditions on the public sector wage bill (through which teachers are paid), particularly across Sub Saharan Africa. In many countries where the IMF does not impose a direct ceiling on the wage bill, its' targeting of single-digit inflation rates and low fiscal deficit levels, still effectively limits the size of the government budget, including the budget for teachers. Governments feel they cannot ignore the IMF advice - because the IMF's judgement on the stability of countries has a dramatic impact on their capacity to attract foreign investment and aid. Despite compelling evidence that education is one of the soundest long term economic investments a country can make, the IMF regards spending on education simply as 'consumption', not as a 'productive investment'. As such, education spending, especially on wages, is always something to be curtailed. The ActionAid research asks whether, in setting these wage bill caps, the IMF and ministries of finance take into consideration rising enrolment rates in primary and secondary schools. Do the caps factor in the education goals that the country has committed itself to? Is there any consultation with ministries of education? It seems not. 'Confronting the Contradictions' is based on detailed case studies in Mozambique, Malawi and Sierra Leone. In Malawi the average class size is 72 children per teacher and to achieve its goals the government would have to more than double the teaching workforce - but this is impossible under present IMF conditions. In Sierra Leone, a post-conflict country, the government has agreed to such restrictive macro-economic targets that it will not be able to recruit urgently needed teachers to get all children into school. In Mozambique the government and donors successfully challenged the IMF to raise the wage ceiling - but this still falls short of real needs. The impact of IMF constraints on wage bills is felt acutely by countries that experience rising enrolments owing to population growth or the abolition of user fees. When Kenya removed user fees in 2003, over 1.3 million children enrolled in school for the first time, but the government was not allowed to employ any more teachers owing to an IMF cap imposed since 1997. Class sizes rose and the quality of education plummeted. This report argues
that governments and national parliaments, not the IMF, are best placed
to determine whether to set public sector wage bill ceilings. The level
of these ceilings should be based on the achievement of education goals.
To achieve this it calls for the following:
David Archer Further
Information See
also May 2007 Comment
on this viewpoint by emailing id21viewpoints@ids.ac.uk
UPDATE to this id21 viewpoint, June 2007: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) responded to the ActionAid report 'Confronting the Contradictions' with a letter in May. ActionAid has now sent a detailed response to this letter (dowload in PDF). The IMF claims to be moving away from using explicit wage bill ceilings. ActionAid welcomes this but awaits details of the concrete steps that the IMF will take to implement this commitment. ActionAid also argues that there are other important steps that the IMF urgently needs to take. It needs to come to the table on education both nationally and internationally to show that it is serious about supporting increased investment in education. The IMF needs to recognise spending on education as a sound, productive economic investment rather than as pure "consumption." It needs to take a long term view rather than being focused on the short term. Most importantly the need to offer a range of policy options to governments and leave it up to national governments to set the macro-economic policies which will be most conducive to achieving national development goals. What's your viewpoint? id21 is inviting academics, practitioners, activists, decision-makers, policy-shapers from NGOs, research institutes, governments, donor organisations - indeed anyone involved in international development – to contribute a short article to id21 expressing their point of view on policy issues relating to their work. Click here for more information. Click here to go back to previous id21 viewpoints Submit
your research to id21
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