Galvanising the effort to fund and deliver 12 years of quality education for every Commonwealth child
By MNA Mehnaz Akber Aziz, Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and IPNEd Regional Representative for Asia.
The World Bank estimates that Pakistan will lose a larger share of students from the school system than any other country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with close to a million children expected to drop out of school.
Across the Commonwealth progress on global education is at a crossroads. The health emergency caused by the COVID19 pandemic has created the largest education crisis in history, affecting 1.6 billion learners in over 190 countries.
No member of the Commonwealth has been left unscathed by this crisis. Whilst almost all countries rolled out remote learning strategies, their delivery has been hampered by widespread inadequacies.
At least a third of the world’s schoolchildren were unable to access any remote learning when their schools shut. Even when remote learning was available, many learners lacked access to the necessary resources or technology leaving them with next to no learning.
It is no surprise that learning losses have accumulated rapidly over the past year, disproportionately affecting girls, children with disabilities, refugees and IDPs, and other marginalized groups.
To make matters worse this all comes on top of an existing learning crisis. 90% of 10-year-olds in low-income countries can not read and understand a simple story. Whilst over a quarter of a billion children are completely excluded from education.
As the world emerges from the pandemic, the challenges it has placed on education systems will not evaporate.
Pressures on public finances creates immediate risk
The combined impacts of school closures and economic crisis brought on by the pandemic threatens to send progress on Sustainable Development Goal 4 of ‘quality education for all’ into freefall. Millions of children have dropped out of school and 20 million girls may never return due to child marriage or early pregnancy.
As schools reopen, it is education budgets that will feel the greatest impact. The education financing gap, which is a primary driver of children’s inability to access education, could, because of the additional costs associated with COVID-19, rise by up to one third.
Yet despite these additional funding needs, two-thirds of low and lower-middle-income countries have, in fact, cut their public education budgets since the onset of the pandemic.
In Pakistan, where I am a Member of the National Assembly, the economic consequences of the pandemic have already led to many provinces redirecting funding away from their education budgets. At the same time falling household budgets and remittances mean that many parents are struggling to maintain the resources they devote to their children’s education. We are bearing witness to the impact of these cuts with many more children on our streets, begging or as labourers.
Meanwhile in Nigeria, which has the second highest out-of-school child population after Pakistan, the budget share for education is the lowest in a decade, amounting to just 5.6% of total government spending.
Rather than cutting budgets, we should be investing now in education re-enrolment to get all children back into education when schools fully open, remediation programmes to address learning loss and in second chance education programmes.
From crisis to catastrophe
The cost of inaction is going to be very high. The World Bank estimates that Pakistan will lose a larger share of students from the school system than any other country, with close to a million children expected to drop out as a result of economic hardship experienced by their families. This is in addition to the 22 million children who were already out of school pre-COVID.
The World Bank also estimates that the pandemic will push millions into learning poverty, resulting in 80% of our children unable to read a simple story by the age 10.
This is nothing short of a learning catastrophe.
One of the reasons why children’s education in Pakistan has been so badly affected by the pandemic is because of decades of chronic underfunding. The share of the government budget going to education had been stagnant for many years at around just 2% of GDP, far short of the international benchmarks of allocating at least 4% to 6% of GDP to education or 15% to 20% of total public expenditure.
A shared challenge across the Commonwealth
More than 30 Commonwealth member countries are currently developing country partners (DCPs) of the Global Partnership for Education, the world’s only education partnership and fund dedicated exclusively to quality education in lower-income countries. This means that these countries have been identified as having the highest rates of out-of-school children and the lowest levels of learning but lack the resources to sustainably build their education systems.
Of those 31 countries, only six currently spend at least 20% of total government expenditure on education - the globally agreed benchmark - with a further four countries spending between 17% and 20% of their total budget on education. A further four Commonwealth member countries are eligible for GPE’s large scale grants.
The remainder of Commonwealth DCPs spend either less than 17% of the total budget on education or have limited, or no available data. This is a major issue in itself because without timely and accurate data on how much is being allocated it is difficult to track overall levels of financing overtime and impossible to determine whether it is being spent effectively.
Together this has significant implications for the resilience of education systems in the Commonwealth and the ability to respond to future crises. Among the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries almost half are Small Island Developing States, including some of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change.
Confronted with climate change, young and growing populations, fragility, high poverty rates and deepening inequalities - and now confronted with the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 - governments in lower-income countries in the Commonwealth need both urgent support and to protect and grow the domestic resources they allocate to education.
An opportunity to act
Despite these vast challenges, next month we have an opportunity to fund education and get children’s learning in the Commonwealth back on track.
In July, the international community will come together in London for the Global Education Summit: Financing GPE 2021 – 2025. At the Summit, co-hosted by the governments of the United Kingdom and Kenya, the Global Partnership for Education aims to raise at least US$5 billion from donor governments to transform education systems in up to 90 countries and territories, where 80% of the world’s out-of-school children live.
This would enable 175 million girls and boys to learn, reach 140 million students with professionally trained teachers and get 88 million more children, including 46 million more girls, in school.
Growing national spending on education
President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, as co-host of the GPE Financing Campaign, has written to Heads of Government in all GPE partner countries inviting them to endorse a Call to Action on Education Financing. The statement commits governments to protect domestic finance for education at pre-COVID levels and increase education budgets towards the 20% global benchmark or beyond.
My aim is that the Heads of Government in all 35 of GPE’s Commonwealth developing country partners endorse President Kenyatta’s Call to Action. Universal endorsement across the Commonwealth would affirm the principle that access to quality educational opportunity is at the heart of the Commonwealth project and that we are committed to putting the principle into practice.
Developing country partners have also been invited to share their commitment to national financing for education at the Summit, including how they will increase spending in order to meet or exceed the 20% of total public expenditure benchmark or beyond. They are also encouraged to set out their plans for ensuring the money allocated to education is spent equitably and efficiently.
In this way the Summit presents a critical opportunity for Commonwealth governments around the world, both donor and developing, to come together to recommit to prioritising, protecting and increasing financing for education and delivering their promise - set out in SDG 4 - to quality education for all.
More and better aid to education
For the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada there is an opportunity to step up, pledge ambitiously and demonstrate the leadership which is critical for the prosperity of the Commonwealth. New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore have the opportunity to also affirm their commitment to education on the global stage by becoming a GPE donor partner for the first time.
A fully-funded GPE will deliver transformative progress in low-income countries across the Commonwealth, but the real progress in closing the education financing gap - which risks rising to $200 billion annually due to COVID-19 - will come from growing national resources for education, which are by far the most important source of education financing.
Growing political leadership for education
In advance of the Education Summit, Members of Parliament have a vital role to play in encouraging their governments to prioritise education.
The International Parliamentary Network for Education (IPNEd), which I represent as Regional Representative for Asia, launched last year with the aim to grow and strengthen political leadership for SDG 4.
Given the pressure that the pandemic has placed on public finances, putting future prosperity at risk, an important focus of the IPNEd Network has been on growing political support for education financing.
As Parliamentarians, we can play a critical role in growing the share of government expenditure for education. We can push for greater resources to be mobilised to education and help ensure that financing is made available in an effective, transparent and accountable way that ensures resources are used to achieve equity.
So far more than 300 Parliamentarians from over 50 countries have become IPNEd members and we have been delighted by the willingness of legislators in the Commonwealth to participate in the IPNEd Network. Parliamentarians join the IPNEd Network by affirming their support for our Declaration.
Collaboration with the CPA
There is still so much more work to do, so I am delighted that we are partnering with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on a briefing on protecting and prioritising financing for education.
The briefing sets out the scale of the education financing gap in the Commonwealth and the actions Members of Parliament can take to encourage their government to prioritise, protect and increase financing for education at home and abroad.
Crucially, we are asking you to encourage your government to make a pledge at the Global Summit to either protect domestic funding for education and to increase the national education budget in order to meet the 20% global benchmark, or for donor governments to increase their financial support for GPE.
The briefing also outlines steps you can take to encourage your Head of Government to endorse the Call to Action and super charge this recommitment for more and better national financing for education. We thank you for your commitment to transforming education in your country.
A new era of progress on education across the Commonwealth
The Education Summit presents the opportunity to kick start a renewal of the Commonwealth’s leadership on education. With the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting delayed, UK Prime Minister Rt Hon. Boris Johnson, MP and President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya can carry forward the momentum from the Summit to Kigali as well as to next year’s Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers, which Kenya is also hosting.
Across the Commonwealth we have some of the biggest education donors and education leaders, like Singapore, alongside countries with the highest out of school populations and biggest rates of learning poverty.
We can and must close those gaps and spread the opportunity and benefits of education across our Commonwealth of nations.
We must not waste this opportunity. We need bold action and leadership from the Commonwealth and all its member countries. By investing now in education, we can prevent the worst education outcomes, mitigate the additional pressure on the education financing gap and get progress towards SDG4 back on track.
As Members of Parliament, we each have a vital role to play in galvanising the effort to fund and deliver twelve years’ of quality education for every Commonwealth child.
MNA Mehnaz Akber Aziz is a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan where she was first elected in 2018. She is Chair of the SDGs Committee on Child Rights and she is also the International Parliamentary Network for Education’s Regional Representative for Asia. She completed a Masters in Anthropology at the Quaid-i-Azam University and a Masters in Gender and Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
This article was originally published by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
