Educational finance in recession

A New Scenario for Educational Planning and Management in Latin America: The Impact of the External Debt. Fernando Reimers

“…Lewin has developed a comprehensive theoretical model of the forces that influence educational expenditures; he suggests that debt and conditionality, as well as reduced international trade and foreign assistance, are among those forces that would reduce the ability of governments to finance education [Lewin 1986[Lewin , 1987. From a conceptual analysis of those factors Lewin deduces seven hypothetical propositions regarding the impact of austerity: (1) «in periods of restraint it is education budgets that are likely to shoulder a substantial share of the burden of cuts», (2) «with stable or contracting budgets structural changes are likely to occur in their distribution» to the detriment of non-salary and capital expenditures, (3) «expenditure, at least in unit cost terms, at primary level will suffer more relative to secondary provision which in turn will suffer more relative to tertiary provision», (4) «formal provision is likely to be less vulnerable than pre-school, out-of-school or post-school non formal provision», (5) reductions in recurrent costs will result in reductions in quality, (6) the importance of cost-recovery will increase and (7) there will be increased dependence on foreign aid for innovation and curricular development [Lewin 1986, p.223-225].…”

Forty Years of Education and Development: from optimism to uncertainty

“…While funding of NFE and community schools is still relatively small compared with funding of the formal sector of schooling the issues raised by this change of direction have continued into the 1980s and have featured very much as part of the World Bank's concern for equity, access and efficiency (World Bank, 1980) and of UNESCO's concern for improved finance of rural education in LDCs (Williams, 1986: Lewin 1986Bray, 1987).…”

“…It is an acute problem in both developed and developing countries, but it is made worse in many developing countries because of population growth; because of increased social demand; because of commitments to as yet unrealised targets of UPE; because of escalating costs, especially where there have been attempts to introduce technical and vocational education; because of scepticism about investment in education as a desirable economic goal; because of 161 growing competition from other sectors of the economy for investment; and because in times of economic recession it is always harder to find additional resources for education. If one area of potential increase, overseas development aid, is also being cutback as Lewin (1986) has shown, some countries are even more adversely affected.…”

“…Both Williams (1980) and Lewin (1986) would argue that this is part of governments' coping strategies, since 75%/80% of recurrent costs go on salaries. Either through deliberate policy or through lack of additional funding primary school teachers' salaries would appear to have declined by 30% while higher education teachers have faced a 40% salary erosion during the past 20 years.…”

“…While recognising that, substantial progress has been made in educational development since the 1950s: enrolments have increased at an unprecedented rate, local leadership cadres have been formed, and education systems and institutions have become better organised, and have extended their reach to areas previously unserved, it nevertheless argues that, Despite these impressive achievements, and to a certain extent because of them, education continues to face problems that complicate further development ... (World Bank, 1980: 21) Williams (1976bWilliams ( , 1981, however, has not only argued that the World Bank tends to view the situation from an unreal perspective, but that if one considers the achievements in enrolments, the progress towards universal primary education, the number of teachers trained, the difficulties in enrolling the last 10% in any country, especially a poor, rural, developing country, then considerable progress has indeed been made. There is undoubtedly a requestioning of the place of education in socioeconomic development, not least because of the financial constraints faced by many countries (Carnoy, 1986;Orivel, 1986;Lewin, 1986Lewin, , 1987Williams, 1986;Bray, 1987). Gone is the euphoria of earlier years, especially during the late 1950s and 1960s.…”