The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported on Tuesday that public education funds benefit the poorest countries the least.
While highlighting worldwide educational disparity, UNICEF revealed that just 16% of public education funding goes to the poorest 20% of students, while 28% goes to the richest 20% of students.
According to the research “Transforming Education with Equitable Financing,” which examines government spending from pre-primary to tertiary school in 102 countries, children from the poorest households receive the least from national public education funding.
“We are failing children,” stated UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. Too many school systems around the world invest the least in the most vulnerable pupils.”
According to Russell, the disparity is most obvious in low-income nations, where children from the wealthiest homes get more than six times the amount of public education spending as the poorest students.
She claims that in middle-income nations such as Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, the richest students receive around four times the amount of public education funding as the lowest.
According to her, in high-income nations, the richest receive 1.1 to 1.6 times as much public education spending as the poorest, with countries such as France and Uruguay on the higher end of the spectrum.
To counteract “learning poverty,” UNICEF has asked for equitable finance.
According to the report, a one percentage point increase in public education resource allocation to the poorest quintile of learners may possibly raise 35 million primary school-aged children out of learning poverty.
According to Russell “investing in the education of the poorest children is the most cost-effective way to ensure the future for children, communities and countries. True progress can only come when we invest in every child, everywhere.”
The report also found that children living in poverty are less likely to attend school, drop out sooner, and are less represented in higher education, which receives much higher public education spending per capita.
“Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, education systems across the world were largely failing children, with hundreds of millions of students attending school but not grasping basic reading and mathematics skills.” the report read.
According to a recent survey, two-thirds of all 10-year-olds globally cannot read or understand a simple story.
