A new document in the UN’s Global Education Monitoring Report shows that low- and lower-middle-income countries face significant funding shortfalls in meeting the baseline targets of SDG 4 (Sustainable Development Goal 4). The report, Can Countries Afford Their National SDG 4 Benchmarks? ’ paper estimates that 21 percent of the funds needed to meet these targets remain unaccounted for, resulting in a funding gap of $9.7 billion.
The new findings were presented on April 13 in Washington, D.C., at a meeting of a high-level group of ministers of education and finance held during the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The campaign focuses on policy reforms to increase spending on education while ensuring maximum efficiency of money spent.
“Greater investment in education can only be achieved if we engage with countries’ fiscal realities,” UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education Stefania Giannini told ministers at a side event. “We must maximize return on every dollar invested in providing all learners with the knowledge, skills and values needed in a rapidly changing world.
Meanwhile, SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee Sherpa Co-Chairs and the Center for Global Development co-hosted a side event on “Multilateral Education Financing Systems: An Agenda for Positive Change” to launch a six-month initiative , to address the effectiveness of the multilateral education financing system.
Call for updated education financing strategy
Two-thirds of low- and lower-middle-income countries cut public education spending within a year of the start of the pandemic. At the same time, aid is stagnating in donor country budgets, and education’s share of aid available is declining.
A third of the gap could be filled if donors lived up to their aid pledges to spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid and prioritize basic education in the poorest countries, the new paper calculates. Even with this assistance, however, there remains a serious lack of funding. Therefore, the world’s poorest countries must spend any additional funds effectively to ensure that their children’s right to education is fulfilled.
One of the priorities for financing education is the need for greater investment in teachers. The number of pre-primary educators needs to triple in low-income countries and double in low- and middle-income countries in order for countries to meet the education benchmark target of SDG 4. In addition, the number of primary school teachers in low-income countries needs to increase by almost 50%.
The new document also covers the financial implications of digital transformation in education, one of the main challenges that both governments and development partners hope to address. The report calculates that the upfront investment in connecting all schools to the grid, installing good internet connections, providing shared school equipment and customizing digital learning alone would cost as much as $18.3 billion in low- and lower-middle-income countries.