A report by Global Education Monitoring (GEM) has predicted that aid to education is to fall by 12 per cent by 2022 due to the effect of COVID-19 across the globe.
GEM said the low-income countries where almost 20 per cent of education spending came from aid would be the hardest hit.
According to the report, education budgets declined after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 65 per cent of low and lower-middle income countries compared to only 33 per cent of high and upper-middle income countries.
The report reads in part: “Despite more low and lower-middle income countries decreasing their budgets, the average reductions were smaller post-COVID-19 than pre-COVID-19 (9.1 versus -3.6 per cent).”
While noting that average budget increases for these countries were slightly higher post-COVID-19 (12.4 versus 8.7 per cent), GEM said the trends for higher income countries were more positive.
GEM further reported that, “Not only did a higher share of upper-middle and high-income countries increased their budgets, but the average increase was higher than in low and lower-middle income countries.
“These divergent trends, Education Finance Watch 2021 observed, will exacerbate pre-existing inequalities between low and lower-middle income countries and high and upper-middle income countries in education spending.”
It further said the share of the total budgets going to education did not change very much.
GEM explained that, “Taken together with the magnitude of the changes explained above, this indicates that total budgets grew faster in upper-middle and high-income countries after the crisis, and despite a smaller share of that growth going to education, the resulting increase was higher than for lower-income countries.”
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