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5. Statistical Analysis of Trends in Basic Education
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5.1
Introduction |
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The study
team have sought to work with funding agencies in order to try
to strengthen their knowledge of levels and trends in their
contributions in support of Education For All. The authors are
grateful for the co-operation of many agencies in trying to
assist in the data collection process. It is recognised that
there remain important gaps, and the first section of this
chapter is concerned with the problems agencies have in
collecting these data. |
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5.1.1
Shortcomings in Current Reporting of Basic Education
Statistics |
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This
study of funding agency contributions to basic education
highlights agency awareness that existing data are
unsatisfactory due to their incompleteness or lack of
comprehensiveness (or both). The study however, represents a
serious effort by agencies to try to remedy these weaknesses.
Some of the reasons for these shortcomings are explored
below. |
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5.1.2
The DAC's Creditor Reporting System (CRS) |
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The
Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD is the
major provider of information on funding agency aid flows. It
is, however, dependent on the quality of data provided by
individual agencies. The DAC holds two sources of information
on the sectoral breakdown of funding agency programmes. The
first, the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) is based on a
comprehensive list of sector and subsector codes. In the case
of education, the latest version of the CRS codes includes
four general codes (not specific to level of education), three
covering basic education , two for secondary education and two
for post-secondary education. One limitation of the most
recent structure of codes is that those who may be interested
in assessing what level of support is provided to non-formal
(NFE), as opposed to formal education, are frustrated by the
fact that formal and NFE are 'bundled' together under each of
the three basic education categories. A further difficulty
facing agencies is that projects and programmes are
constrained to a single sector code, which means that where an
intervention spans several sub-sectors this sub-sector
information is lost. Otherwise, the CRS system provides a
reasonable basis for assessing the nature of funding agency
support to basic education - in theory. Unfortunately, in
practice there are significant omissions in the data provided
by individual DAC agencies through the Creditor Reporting
System.
The
amounts recorded in the CRS data are substantially lower than
the other main source of DAC data on basic education (see
below), mainly due to the fact that several major agencies do
not apply the CRS codes to the technical co-operation parts of
their programmes. This results in very sizeable underreporting
of basic education, which limits its usefulness if one is
attempting to prepare an accurate and comprehensive assessment
of basic education spend. Furthermore, for many agencies, a
very large share of the aid to education is reported under the
first general category of CRS education codes. This includes
support to education policy and management and teacher
training, for instance, much of it may actually have been
destined to assist basic or primary education. It is not
however, captured on the basic education totals. Related to
this is the issue of support to sector wide approaches (SWAps)
or sector investment programmes. The current guidelines for
CRS reporting state that agencies should record commitments to
such sector reform programmes under the education - level
unspecified categories, such as education policy and
administrative management. This is due to the difficulty of
attributing what share of sector wide approaches can
legitimately be deemed to be supporting basic education.
However, many current so-called sector wide programmes are in
fact sub-sector programmes in support of primary education.
This also contributes to the under representation of basic
education support under the CRS system. It is for these
reasons, and in particular the incomplete coverage of CRS
data, that CRS data have not been used at all in this
analysis. |
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5.1.3
DAC Sector Table |
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The second
source of DAC data on basic education is provided in the DAC's
Aid by Major Purposes table, henceforth referred to as the DAC
Sector Table. This shows education and basic education aid
flows to be far higher than that indicated by the CRS data.
However, there are unfortunately major limitations to this
source also. Firstly, there are some gaps in the data for
basic education, though this has improved in the last couple
of years. Secondly, and even more seriously, only commitments
data are provided. In other words, there is no way of telling
from the DAC Sector Table how much aid to basic education has
actually been disbursed in a given year by a said agency.
Commitments data often tend to vary sharply from year to year,
partly as new political decisions are made. This can result in
a significant increase in one year, followed by a steep
decline in the following year, partly because the commitment
recorded may in fact refer to aid that is likely to be spent
over several years. Some agencies, such as DFID, supply data
to the DAC Sector Table based on what is termed a
'coefficient'. This represents an educated guess as to what
share of the agencies education aid is likely to have been
spent on basic education. However, it may very well be
inaccurate, and may not be based on a careful analysis of an
agency's actual portfolio of interventions. In addition, the
DAC Sector Table distinguishes between education and basic
education only, shedding no light on the allocation to the
many sub-sectors that make up each.
In this
Section we use the original data submitted by agencies for use
in the DAC Sector Table, which is referred to simply as the
DAC data. These differ in certain years for certain agencies
from the percentages shown in the published DAC Sector Tables.
However, they provide the totals directly supplied by agencies
to the DAC in US $ for education and basic education and they
may be more accurate than the percentages of total aid
indicated in the DAC Sector Table. They nonetheless suffer
from exactly the same limitations as those highlighted above
for the DAC Sector Table data. |
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5.1.4
ODI Survey Data |
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It is a
matter of concern that the standard, internationally available
data on basic education are inadequate to the task of
providing an accurate and comprehensive picture of aid
commitments and actual disbursements to basic education,
despite the significant political priority accorded to basic
education at Jomtien.
It was for
these reasons that the study team were asked to attempt to
collect new primary data direct from the funding agencies,
which sought to break down both commitments and disbursements
by education sub-sectors. The process of requesting agencies
to supply data and following up with them individually has
been time-consuming. It is somewhat disappointing, therefore,
that many significant gaps remain in the ODI survey data (see
Table 5.2). Several of the agencies explained the difficulties
of giving a complete account of their country's aid to
education in the developing world (see Box 5.1).
Box 5.1
Definitional Issues such as where to put early
childhood education (ASDB), capacity building in non-education
sectors (NZODA), changes in codes during the decade
(Netherlands), basket finding (DANIDA) and because the
definition of basic education is left to partner governments
(DFID).
Agency
Capacity because allocation and expenditure data is not
tracked that way (EU, NORAD), projects cover more than one
sector (DFID) and to disentangle training provision takes
resources and time (NZODA) especially towards end of budget
year (USAID)
It is
believed that where agencies have provided data directly to
ODI this is likely to be the most accurate available.
Significant weight is given to this data, therefore, in this
Section. However, as indicated above, there are some major
gaps in this data, with several large bilateral and
multilateral agencies having been unable to provide data to
complete the ODI survey. For this reason, the discussion below
covers both the ODI survey data and the DAC Sector Table
information (especially as the two sets of figures can be very
different if they originate from different sources). To avoid
confusion the latter figure has been presented separately in
appendix 3. This is an unsatisfactory situation, which
highlights the considerable difficulties agencies are facing
in presenting a comprehensive and accurate account of their
commitments and expenditures on basic education. We would
argue that where data is available from both sources, that the
ODI survey data should be preferred. The DAC Sector Table,
however, can be usefully used where the ODI survey data is
incomplete.
Data were
requested on both commitments and disbursements broken down by
sub-sector and by geographical region from 1991 to 1999.
Several major agencies (see footnote below), were unable to
supply any comprehensive data on basic education commitments
or disbursements. Others provided either one or the other.
Only a few were able to indicate which countries or regions
benefited and these have been considered in Chapter 6. The
data provided were converted to US dollars to allow for
comparability across agencies. Trends over time for groups of
agencies were calculated by aggregating volumes across
agencies before calculating percentages (thus taking account
of the relative size of the different agencies), rather than
averaging the percentage shifts across the agencies (which
would mean that each agency counted equally).
Despite
the limitations of commitments data described above, this is
the main focus of this Section for two reasons. Firstly, the
majority of the data provided by agencies for the ODI survey
were commitments rather than disbursements. Secondly, in order
to compare ODI survey data with those reported by the DAC
there is no option but to use commitments. When considering
the trend of support to basic education over time revealed by
this data, the distortion due to the intrinsic 'spikyness' or
unevenness of commitments data must be kept in mind. Thus for
instance, total ODA commitments for USA stood at $19.7 billion
in 1990, falling to about $11bn. in 1991 and remaining around
the $8.5bn. mark until 1994. This huge and one-off boost to US
(and therefore total DAC) commitment levels in 1990 will
inevitably affect the trend of basic education commitments
expressed as a percentage of total commitments. US total ODA
disbursements, on the other hand, remained broadly constant,
but these figures cannot be used since neither the DAC data
nor sufficient ODI survey data exist for disbursements. More
fundamentally, while commitment levels are the best and
swiftest indicators of changes of political priority (i.e. the
weight given in funding terms to particular sectors), they say
little directly about the levels of support actually received
by partner countries. We have included a small sub-section on
disbursements. |
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5.2
Overview of Total Bilateral Aid Commitments |
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To set
the scene, we show, in Table 5.1, the overall volume of
bilateral aid commitments taken from OECD DAC figures . These
have dropped from $41.5 billion in 1990 to $31.1 billion in
1997; but nearly all of that drop is due to the drop in US
commitments from $19.8 billion in 1990 to $11.0 billion in
1991. In addition the USA, Canada, Finland, Italy and Sweden
have also registered declines in the total volumes of aid. The
Netherlands saw increases from 1990 to 1994, though this fell
back again, and the 1997 current terms levels were
approximately the same as at the beginning of the decade.
German aid levels peaked in 1992, 1995 and 1996, but in 1997
stood at the same level as in 1990, while in the case of the
UK, aid levels remained more or less constant over the decade,
apart from a peak in 1991 and a trough in 1993. However, while
aid levels for these countries remained broadly once inflation
is accounted for. |
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Table
5.1 Total Bilateral Commitments (DAC data: US million dollars
- current prices) not available |
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5.3
Aid to Whole Education Sector |
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5.3.1
Commitment Data for Bilaterals |
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The most
obvious indicator of agency commitment to the education sector
as a whole is the proportion each agency's total aid budget
allocated to education activities (see Table 5.2 below).
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Prior to
the Jomtien Conference in 1990, assistance to education as a
whole as a percentage of total commitments had fallen or
stagnated amongst most bilateral agencies, hovering at around
10% of the total DAC ODA, 'with, furthermore, most agencies
[giving] fairly minimal support to basic education' (Bennell
and Furlong, 1998). According to Lockheed and Verspoor (1990),
only about 5% of education aid was devoted to basic education,
though the World Bank increased its lending to primary
education from the mid-1980s. |
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Table 5.2
shows a mixed but, to a degree, a positive picture of trends
in the level of support to education. The percentage of all
ODA committed to education according to the survey responses
was 16% in 1990, declined to 1992, recovered to average around
15% during the period 1993-98. Not surprisingly, given this
significant recent increase, disbursement levels for some
agencies lag some way behind, and would be expected to
increase significantly in the next few years, providing recent
large-scale funding commitments do not encounter major
difficulties. According to the data supplied directly to us by
DAC, the overall percentage of ODA committed by bilateral
agencies to education showed a similar pattern (see Tables in
appendix 3), being approximately 14% at the beginning, of the
decade and rising to nearly 16% by 1997 (the last year data is
available in the DAC system). |
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Figure
5.1 Commitments to Education Sector as a percentage of all
ODA |
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The
figures generated by our survey for Denmark, Finland, Germany,
and New Zealand correspond roughly to those received directly
from DAC. The survey data show a consistently higher
percentage of total aid in support of education for Canada,
and lower levels for Belgium (and the figures for Ireland and
for UK from the two sources hardly overlap). Note also that
the DAC data supplied directly to ODI differ from those given
by Bennell and Furlong (1998), who observed a decrease from
10.2% in 1989/90 to 8.5% in 1991-92 with an increase only back
to the original level of 10.1% in 1993/4.
These
aggregate figures, of course, mask large variations among
individual bilateral agencies. Neither the survey data nor the
DAC data, however show a consistent trend for the decade as a
whole. According to the DAC data, although the percentage of
ODA was higher at the end of the decade than at the beginning
for Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg and
Norway, only Luxembourg consistently (except for a small dip
in 1996) increased the percentage of its ODA allocated to the
education sector (for the years available), whilst there were
declines for Belgium, France, Japan, Netherlands, Spain,
Switzerland and the UK. |
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5.3.2
Disbursement Data for Bilaterals |
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For the
five bilateral agencies (Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands,
Norway and Portugal) that provided disbursement data both
overall and for the whole education sector, the percentage of
all disbursements has increased consistently over the decade
(see Table 5.3). |
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Table
5.3 Ed as a % of All ODA - Disbursements (not
available) |
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5.3.3
Commitments by Multilaterals |
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The
overall share among the multilaterals for which we have data,
and especially with respect to the World Bank, has increased
(see tables 5.4 A and B). We received information from the
Asian Development Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, the
Inter-American Bank, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank,
but the data that we have received from the Caribbean
Development Bank and UNDP was not sufficiently detailed to
include in the tables. Further, as only the Inter-American
Development Bank and the World Bank provided figures for total
lending, we are only able to calculate shares of all lending
for those two agencies.
However,
for this limited sample, we have calculated shares of
commitments to education in all ODA and basic education as a
share of education aid and of all ODA, based both on all loans
(Table 5.4A) and only on 'soft' loans (Table 5.4B). It can be
seen that, as a percentage of all ODA, the World Bank has
increased the share allocated to education from 7.2% to 10.9%
over the decade, although there were dips in both 1992 and
1997, and that the Inter-American Development Bank has
increased the share from 0.4% to 2.9%, although there were
much higher percentages shares in 1994 and 1997. All the
multilateral agencies who sent data have assigned a
substantial fraction of their commitments to education to the
basic education sub-sector. |
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Table
5.4A Commitments, Shares for Multilaterals Based on All
Loans |
(not
available) |
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Table
5.4B Commitments, Shares for Multilaterals Based on Soft Loans
Only (not available) |
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A summary
of this kaleidoscope based on ODI survey data is presented in
Box 5.2; on the whole, the picture appears encouraging.
However, the corresponding trends based on the DAC (shown in
the appendix 3, Box 5.2A) suggest a more dismal picture.
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Box
5.2 Trend in Percentage Share of All Education in all ODA
Commitments over the Decade (ODI Survey) not
available |
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5.3.4
Trends in Volume |
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One might
reasonably argue that, from the point of view of children in
the recipient country, what matters is the total volume of
educational aid that they receive rather than necessarily the
proportion of the agency's overall aid budget. Moreover, given
the fungibility of aid between sectors, as well as within them
(e.g. within education), the total volume of aid going to
education is likely to be important, as well as the proportion
of aid within the education total which is allocated to basic
education.
According
to our survey, the absolute value of commitments to the
education sector has grown from about $400m in 1990 to nearly
$1,400m in 1994 and back again to $900m in 1998 (all in
current prices: the 1999 figure is based on so few agencies
that it should be ignored). However, it must be noted that
several major agencies are excluded from this total. The total
value of disbursements, reported by five of the agencies has
been highly erratic with $600m in 1991, but never more than
$300m in any subsequent year. |
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Figure
5.2 Commitments to Whole Education Sector in Millions US
Dollars (Bilaterals) |
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Source
: ODI Survey, 1999. |
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The
absolute value of commitments to the education sector reported
via DAC has dropped slightly from $5,664m in 1990 to $4,946m
in 1991, and stayed at about that level until 1995 when there
was another increase to $6,037m, since when commitments have
dropped back to $4,793m in 1997 (current prices). The recent
decline mirrors the steady fall in ODA commitments overall (as
we have seen that the percentage of ODA to education has
continued to rise according to both sources).
Box 5.3
shows a clear upward trend in bilateral aid to education over
the decade, based on ODI survey data (using whichever of
commitment or disbursement data is available). Although the
DAC data in appendix 3 suggest a more mixed picture, for those
agencies where there is information from both sources, we
believe that the survey is more reliable. |
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Box
5.3 Trend in Absolute Value of Bilateral Agency Aid to All
Education over the Decade (ODI Survey Data) not
available |
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From the
multilateral agencies World Bank lending for education
increased from $1,487m in 1990 (all loans) to $2,252m in 1991
but has fallen back to $1,706m in 1996. In 1990, the absolute
amount of Bank lending for education was slightly over 20% of
all bilateral funding and by 1994 this had doubled to 39%. It
is noticeable, however, that IDA loans have hardly increased
at all, remaining around $800 million; although it was also
true that the relative proportion of IDA lending to education
to grants from the bilateral agencies doubled from 8% in
1988-89 (comparing $329m with $4,300m) to 16% in 1994
(comparing $800m with $5,000m).
During
1990-96, total lending for education among the three big
Regional Banks averaged $622 million per annum approximately
one third the annual level of the World Bank. Overall, using
whichever of commitment or disbursement data is available
according to the survey data, multilateral commitments stood
at $1,000 in 1990, rising to nearly $2,000m in 1994 (a peak
year), but have since fallen back to $1,300m in 1998.
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5.4
Aid to Basic Education |
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Jomtien
marked a stated commitment to basic levels and types of
education. Given the agency commitment to the declaration this
should have been accompanied by a shift during the subsequent
decade away from other sectors of education, such as higher
education. |
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5.4.1
The Policy Impact of Jomtien |
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It has
actually proved quite difficult to extract data on resource
commitments to basic education (or even to primary education)
despite the prominence given to Jomtien and its re-iteration
by the agencies in new or renewed policy commitments. The EFA
Forum Secretariat, as part of the EFA Mid-Decade Review, noted
that "only a few agency countries have declined to join the
international consensus in support of basic education" but
were unable to collect any data - except from Germany - to
prove the point. Nonetheless, as will be seen below, there is
evidence that an important and positive shift, from the point
of view of Jomtien, has indeed taken place for many agencies.
Based on
DAC published data, Bennell and Furlong (1998) showed
substantial increases in the proportions allocated to basic
(although often from a very low base) for Australia, Canada,
France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands and Switzerland. However,
they also showed that the response during the first half of
the 1990s was relatively slow. Whilst some agencies (notably
Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom) undertook formal
comprehensive reviews of their education aid programmes soon
after Jomtien (see BMZ, 1992, The Netherlands (DGIS) 1994, ODA
1993), others such as Australia, Canada, France, Japan and
Norway did not complete their reviews until much later.
Bennell and Furlong suggested that this might mean that there
would be substantial improvement in the second half of the
1990s; but also hedged their bets by suggesting that there
were a number of other factors which came into play.
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5.4.2
Aggregate Trends in Percentages over the
Decade |
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Based on
our survey data (see Table 5.5), the proportion of aid to
education which is going to basic education has been graphed
for each country and aggregated to all bilaterals and all
multilaterals (see Fig 5.3). For all bilaterals together,
commitments increased substantially as a proportion of all
commitments to education to about 43% in 1996, falling for
1997 and 1998 and reviving again in 1999 to nearly 30%
(although the last percentage figure is based on only a very
small number of agencies). Based on DAC data, the proportion
of all education aid committed to basic education by bilateral
agencies has risen steadily and dramatically from around 2% in
1993 to 14% in 1997 (Table 5.5A). Similar tables showing the
aid to basic education as a percentage of all commitments are
shown in Table 5.6 (ODI Survey) and in the annex for the DAC
data (Table 5.6A)
For the
five agencies providing disbursement data, they increased very
rapidly to peak in 1995 at over 50% with a substantial drop in
1996 and rise again to over 40%. For all multilaterals
together, based on our survey, the proportion of basic
education lending in all education lending has been high
throughout the 1990s (at least according to their definitions)
at between 75% and 100%, but disbursements have remained
between 30% and 50%. |
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TABLE
5.5 - Basic Education as a % of All Education Commitments (ODI
Survey) not available |
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Figure
5.3 Commitments to Basic Education as a Percentage of
Commitments to the Whole Education Sector |
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TABLE
5.6 - Basic Education as a % of All ODA Commitments (not
available) |
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Disbursement Data from Bilaterals |
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TABLE
5.7 - Basic Education as a % of All Education Disbursements
(ODI Survey) not available |
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5.4.3
Trends in Agency Support to Basic Education |
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Based on
data from DAC publications, Bennell and Furlong (1998:55) say
that, "at or around the time of Jomtien, only four bilateral
agencies (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the United States)
committed and/or disbursed more than 25% of their education
sector activities on basic education activities" . However,
based on their replies to the King and Carr-Hill questionnaire
in 1991, this was also true for Germany and the Netherlands.
Whilst
there are variations between the different agencies, there has
been more of a consistent pattern over the decade than was the
case for the share to the whole education sector. According to
the ODI survey data, four agencies have generally increased
the share of commitments to basic education as a proportion of
total education commitments (Denmark, Germany, New Zealand and
UK), three show stability, and one a decline (see Box 5.4).
According to the DAC data (see Box 5.4A in appendix 3), there
are clear rises in the proportion of education commitments
which go to basic education for Australia, Belgium, Denmark,
New Zealand, UNESCO Extra Budgetary and the World Bank; and
clear rises in the proportion of disbursements for education
which go to basic education for the Netherlands, Norway, and
UNESCO Extra Budgetary. Note that there are differences in
interpretations for the two sources; notably for Denmark,
Netherlands (partly because of differences between commitments
and disbursements, partly because of different time-spans, and
partly of course because the data are different).
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Box
5.4 Percentage Share of Basic Education in Agency Commitments
to Education over the Decade (ODI Survey Data) not
available |
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Table 5.8
shows which agencies state they have basic education as a key
focus and also those who see it as an area of increasing
importance, though not necessarily the priority; and compares
this with what commitments they have actually made to basic
education over the decade, relative to their total aid
programme. |
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Table
5.8 Focus on Basic Education within Total Aid
Programme |
(not
available) |
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The
following types of trends in bilateral agency support since
1990 can be distinguished:
Significant increases in the commitment to basic
education with at least a 20% increase in funding share to
basic education. This group includes 5 countries (possibly
several more but we do not have any data for the beginning of
the decade).
Moderate
or minor increases either from a very low base or to a small
fraction (less than 0.5%). This group included 4 countries.
Declines
in the share of basic/primary education. For three of four
agencies that, prior to 1990 had the best records in support
of basic education, recorded declines in the share of basic
education |
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5.4.4
Total Values as Opposed to Shares |
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According
to our survey data, the absolute amounts committed to basic
education at the beginning of the decade were very small
according to either source. For the group of agencies which
have provided data, this rose to about $400 m in 1995 but
dropped back to under $300m in 1998; and according to the DAC
data there was a similar pattern rising to nearly $650m in
1995. In contrast, there does appear to have been a steady
rise in disbursements from almost zero in 1990 to about $170m
in 1998. Among the multilaterals, commitments have increased
from $500m to a peak of nearly $2,000m in 1994 and between
$1,200m and $1,900m in succeeding years.
ODI survey
data (summarised in Box 5.5 below) show that the absolute
value of agency commitments (or disbursements where available)
to basic education has increased for the great majority of
agencies (nine agencies). It declined for none, and remained
more or less constant for a further three. |
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Box
5.5 Absolute Value of Agency Commitments (or Disbursements) to
Basic Education over the Decade (ODI Survey Data) not
available |
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In
absolute terms, bilateral funding for basic education for the
agencies covered in the survey increased from around 1% of
total education commitments in 1990 to approximately 15% in
1997. However, this has been very uneven between countries as
is shown in Table 5.5. |
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Figure
5.4 Commitments to Basic Education in Millions US Dollars
(Bilaterals) |
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5.5
Conclusions |
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There are
two kinds of conclusions: concerning the quality of the data;
and the trends that we have been able to discern. |
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5.5.1
Improving Agency Capacity to Report on Basic
Education |
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"The
survey suggested that many agencies found difficulty in
reporting their contribution to basic education. In some
cases…this was because agencies collected data by different
geographical and income categories, but for the main 'Jomtien
components' of basic education (early childhood education,
primary schooling, adult literacy etc.), it was plain that
many agencies simply could not provide these
breakdowns."
This was
the conclusion of King and Carr-Hill (1991:15) after a similar
exercise over eight years ago: it still rings true today. They
went on to say:
"It was
equally plain that many agencies were determined to rectify
the situation", citing the responses of Switzerland and USA.
Unfortunately, this does not seem to have happened: it has to
be seen as astonishing that the situation has not improved in
the interim. There seems little point in having a target, if
one is unable to accurately reflect progress towards (or away)
from it. |
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5.5.2
Rhetoric and Practice |
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On the
basis of commitments data, the amounts allocated to the
education sector have fallen in line with the commitments
overall (but see the caveat above about this trend). On the
other hand, one positive element stands out vis-a-vis Jomtien:
the proportion of all commitments to basic education has risen
as a proportion of commitments to the whole education sector;
so that the allocations to basic education as a proportion of
all bilateral commitments have also risen; and the volumes of
aid to the basic education sector has been stable or risen
slightly over the decade.
This
positive conclusion needs to be tempered with a recognition
that whilst many agencies have increased the proportion of
their aid to basic education in line with their policy
statements, in some/many cases, this was from a very low base
(less than 0.5% of their whole aid budget); and in some cases,
it is still less than 0.5% at the end of the decade.
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5.6
Outstanding Issues |
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There is a
major problem in reporting sector breakdowns of disbursements
in general and of reporting the amounts of aid
allocated/committed to basic education in particular. The
situation has not improved over the decade. Moreover
difficulties related to the current reporting systems are
likely to be exacerbated as more agencies move to provide
budgetary support to the education sector under sector
approaches (see Section 10), as allocations to the basic
education sub-sector will not be specified.
This
raises the possibility that it is not only impossible, but
also not necessarily relevant, to ensure full intra-sectoral
accountability for education, since the potential strength of
such budgetary sectoral support lies in part in the fact that
all sub-sectors are covered. A general move by the agency
community to sector wide approaches could change the basis on
which reporting takes place. However, a standardised approach
by agencies to these issues would still be of great value.
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