Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends

This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global...

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Main Authors: Al-Samarrai, Samer, Cerdan-Infantes, Pedro, Lehe, Jonathan
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/244151552329948414/Mobilizing-Resources-for-Education-and-Improving-Spending-Effectiveness-Establishing-Realistic-Benchmarks-Based-on-Past-Trends
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31399
id okr-10986-31399
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-313992022-09-20T00:15:38Z Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends Al-Samarrai, Samer Cerdan-Infantes, Pedro Lehe, Jonathan EDUCATION FINANCE EDUCATION OUTCOMES FISCAL SPACE PUBLIC EDUCATION SPENDING This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global spending on education has risen significantly over the past two decades, although spending as a share of gross domestic product has remained relatively unchanged, at about 4.5 percent. However, global trends mask large differences across regions and country income groups. For example, low-income countries recorded the largest increases in terms of the share of GDP spent on education, but the absolute amount they devoted to education remained low compared to other countries. Economic growth has been the main driver of increases in public education spending. Yet, countries that achieved the largest and most rapid spending increases did this through a combination of increases in overall government revenues, a greater prioritization of education in the government budget as well as healthy economic growth. Increases in public education spending did not generally result in major improvements in average education outcomes. Using the available data, the paper shows that a doubling of government spending per child led to an increase in learning-adjusted years of schooling of only half a year. Preliminary findings also show that countries with lower efficiency and spending are expected to get the most from increases in spending in improved education outcomes. The paper concludes by outlining an approach that allows countries to assess their potential for increasing education funding and the expected effects on their education outcomes, based on benchmarks drawing from the data of comparable countries. It also underscores the urgent need to improve data on public education spending and education outcomes, to extend this analysis to cover a wider set of countries and increase the robustness of country-level benchmarks. 2019-03-14T20:18:30Z 2019-03-14T20:18:30Z 2019-03 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/244151552329948414/Mobilizing-Resources-for-Education-and-Improving-Spending-Effectiveness-Establishing-Realistic-Benchmarks-Based-on-Past-Trends http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31399 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8773 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic EDUCATION FINANCE
EDUCATION OUTCOMES
FISCAL SPACE
PUBLIC EDUCATION SPENDING
spellingShingle EDUCATION FINANCE
EDUCATION OUTCOMES
FISCAL SPACE
PUBLIC EDUCATION SPENDING
Al-Samarrai, Samer
Cerdan-Infantes, Pedro
Lehe, Jonathan
Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8773
description This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global spending on education has risen significantly over the past two decades, although spending as a share of gross domestic product has remained relatively unchanged, at about 4.5 percent. However, global trends mask large differences across regions and country income groups. For example, low-income countries recorded the largest increases in terms of the share of GDP spent on education, but the absolute amount they devoted to education remained low compared to other countries. Economic growth has been the main driver of increases in public education spending. Yet, countries that achieved the largest and most rapid spending increases did this through a combination of increases in overall government revenues, a greater prioritization of education in the government budget as well as healthy economic growth. Increases in public education spending did not generally result in major improvements in average education outcomes. Using the available data, the paper shows that a doubling of government spending per child led to an increase in learning-adjusted years of schooling of only half a year. Preliminary findings also show that countries with lower efficiency and spending are expected to get the most from increases in spending in improved education outcomes. The paper concludes by outlining an approach that allows countries to assess their potential for increasing education funding and the expected effects on their education outcomes, based on benchmarks drawing from the data of comparable countries. It also underscores the urgent need to improve data on public education spending and education outcomes, to extend this analysis to cover a wider set of countries and increase the robustness of country-level benchmarks.
format Working Paper
author Al-Samarrai, Samer
Cerdan-Infantes, Pedro
Lehe, Jonathan
author_facet Al-Samarrai, Samer
Cerdan-Infantes, Pedro
Lehe, Jonathan
author_sort Al-Samarrai, Samer
title Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends
title_short Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends
title_full Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends
title_fullStr Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends
title_full_unstemmed Mobilizing Resources for Education and Improving Spending Effectiveness : Establishing Realistic Benchmarks Based on Past Trends
title_sort mobilizing resources for education and improving spending effectiveness : establishing realistic benchmarks based on past trends
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2019
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/244151552329948414/Mobilizing-Resources-for-Education-and-Improving-Spending-Effectiveness-Establishing-Realistic-Benchmarks-Based-on-Past-Trends
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31399
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