A recent UNICEF report published in January 2020, indicates that there is currently a learning crisis and that it is multi-dimensional. The report also indicates that a key factor that affects the quality of education is the availability of funding.
The report goes on to state that, “underinvestment in education can result in several conditions – from large class sizes and poor-quality teachers to lack of supportive materials and poor school infrastructure – which negatively impact how and what children learn. After the Millennium Development and Education For All Goals were adopted in 2000, there was an important focus on increasing the allocation of national resources to education. Between 2000-2015, many countries at different income levels saw an increase in public funding of education.
In low-income countries, education spending increased from on average 3.48 per cent of the GDP in 2000 to 3.82 per cent of the GDP in 2015. In lower-middle-income countries, the average also went up: from 4.2 per cent to 4.64 per cent over the same period. However, many low-income countries attribute far less than 20 per cent of domestic resources to education, which is widely accepted as a benchmark target.”
We have only posted an excerpt here in this blog, but the full report goes into much greater details and is available is online from the following link:
https://www.unicef.org/media/63896/file/Addressing-the-learning-crisis-advocacy-brief-2020.pdf
