EDUCATIONAL ISSUES

Weakened Fragmentation
Lack of Clarity in Inter-
Governance Tier Relationships

Poor Quality of Teachers &

Managers

Quality of curriculum, textbooks &

exams
CHALLENGE
S
Low level of literacy

Out of school children

Dropouts

2
Public Private Partnership

In-adequate financing

Gender Equity
CHALLENGE
S
Poor monitoring & evaluation

Imbalance in primary, middle &

secondary schools

Inconvenient school location

3
 World leaders made the achievement of universal
primary education by the year 2015 one of the
Millennium Development Goals. This goal still
appears to be out of reach for many poor countries.
School attendance, especially for girls, is far from
universal, and many children drop out of school
before completing their primary education.

ISSUES

Many children who do attend school receive an

inadequate education because of poorly trained,
underpaid teachers, overcrowded classrooms, and a
lack of basic teaching tools such as textbooks,
blackboards, and pens and paper.
 The problem in many developing countries is
that governments lack either

financial resources political will

ISSUES
In response,

School fees and other user

Poor parents in some low income
countries have organized and paid
for their children's education
themselves.
payments are a heavy burden for
some parents to bear. But, given
the alternative—children receiving
no education at all—such
payments can represent a
temporary, if less than ideal,
solution to the problem.
 In an ideal world, primary education
would be publicly financed, and all
children would be able to attend school
regardless of their parents' ability or
willingness to pay.

ISSUES

School attendance in the world's poorest

countries is by no means universal.
According to the UNDP, about 265
million children worldwide are out of
school at varied level of education
The bulk of the world's poor live in East Asia
and the Pacific, South Asia, and sub-Saharan
Africa.

ISSUES

Many children in poor countries drop out of

school before graduating In 1999, the
completion rate—the percentage of children
of graduating age who actually completed
primary school that year is 67 percent in
South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Girls figure disproportionately among
the children who do not attend school
in all low-income countries. The bias
against girls is especially marked in
South Asia and Africa

ISSUES

Children with disabilities are

particularly disadvantaged. It is
estimated that only 5 percent of
learning-disabled African children
who need special education go to
school
 • ACCORDING TO ECONOMIC THEORY, A
LACK OR SHORTAGE OF A GOOD OR
SUPPLY SERVICE THAT IS CLEARLY
DESIRABLE STEMS FROM EITHER A
AND FAILURE OF DEMAND OR A FAILURE
OF SUPPLY. THAT IS, THERE ARE
DEMAND DEMAND-SIDE AND SUPPLY-SIDE
IMPEDIMENTS.
RELATION
Cost is one obvious reason why demand for education might
be low, given that poor families must meet their essential
needs—food and shelter—first.

Demand for education may not be present because of the

opportunity costs of educating children: parents may prefer
that their children work to supplement household income, do
household chores, or care for sick family members.
DEMAND

In African countries afflicted by AIDS, children may stay out

of school to care for sick parents or orphaned siblings.
Opportunity costs make even free schooling unaffordable for
some families.
Also affecting demand for education is its perceived
value. Parents may not have enough information to
assess the return on an investment in their children's
education accurately.

They may see the return—sometimes correctly—as

too low to justify the cost, perhaps because of the
poor quality of the education available to them. They
may believe that jobs in the local economy do not
DEMAND
require academic skills or that getting a job depends
more on personal connections than on skill.

They may feel that more competitive urban job

markets are too far from community and family to
consider. Or they may simply be unaware of the
opportunities that exist, especially if they are
uneducated themselves. If they live in a community
that devalues education or frowns upon educating
girls, they may be reluctant to violate social norms.
 • THERE MAY BE A FAILURE OF SUPPLY
• A GOVERNMENT MAY LACK ENOUGH
RESOURCES TO PROVIDE EDUCATIONAL
SERVICES OR BE ADMINISTRATIVELY
INCAPABLE OF CHANNELING RESOURCES
TO THE SCHOOLS THAT NEED THEM.
• GOVERNMENT-FINANCED SCHOOLS MAY
EXIST IN URBAN AREAS BUT NOT IN RURAL
AREAS OR MAY VARY GREATLY IN QUALITY.
•
SUPPLY
PUBLICLY FINANCED SCHOOLS MAY BE A
LOW PRIORITY IF THE COUNTRY'S
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ELITES SEND
THEIR CHILDREN TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS.
• PUBLIC RESOURCES MAY BE DIVERTED
FROM PRIMARY EDUCATION TO
INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION
THAT SERVE THE GOVERNING ELITE OR
SHIFTED OUT OF EDUCATION ALTOGETHER
AND INTO OTHER PROJECTS—SAY,
MILITARY BUILDUP—FAVORED BY ELITES
SEEKING TO PROTECT THEIR INTERESTS.
 Corruption is another reason poor children in poor
countries may not have access to quality government-
financed schools: government officials may shun
spending on schools in favor of big-ticket items such
as defense or road construction, for example, since
funding for them is easier to divert and such projects
are likelier to involve kickbacks.

SUPPLY

Foreign donors—aid tends to account for a large share

of poor countries' budgets—also seem to favor capital
spending over recurring school expenses like salaries
and textbooks.
 Because basic education is a recognized entitlement
and society benefits when children are educated, the
state should bear the cost, especially for poor
children.

EDUCATION
However government may not have the resources to WHOSE
provide a free education for all, either because RESPONSIBILI
TY
The political will to
provide universal
the state does a poor job
education may also
with the resources it has.
be absent in
there is a large, Funds are badly
tax administration undemocratic
untaxed shadow managed, and
and collection are inefficiency or outright societies, if ruling
economy and the
ineffective. elites fear that an
tax base is small, corruption may prevent
educated population
resources from reaching
will be better
schools.
equipped to
challenge them.
 If demand is inadequate because parents are
misinformed about the true value of education for
their children, user payments may have a
"demonstration effect": when user payments allow
more children to go to school, gain skills, and
ultimately find jobs, parents of other children may be
persuaded that schooling is worthwhile.

USER
PAYMENTS
By shifting education financing to the local level, user
payments can improve school management. Schools
that are accountable to the local community—and to
parents, specifically—have a greater incentive to
provide a high-quality education, even though
corruption may exist at the local level as well as at the
national level. Put simply, it is easier for parents to
watch over local officials and to take collective action
against them if need be
Educational reform based on user payments may
even generate a virtuous political circle. As more
people become better educated, they seek greater
democratic participation for themselves and
greater accountability from their government.

USER
PAYMENTS
User payments may restore the link between
money paid out and services received. That is,
people may be prepared to pay for schools
because they can see what they are getting for
their money, whereas they may evade taxes
because they perceive, correctly, that their taxes
will be appropriated by corrupt officials and not
reach the schools.