Kenya’s basic education under threat as donors drastically cut funding, new report shows

NAIROBI: Donor funding for basic education in developing countries has drastically reduced, a new report has revealed.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Institute for Statistics report revealed that donors are channelling funds to secondary and post-secondary education as the scope of international education agenda expands beyond 2015.

The study also shows that even multilateral donors, whose aid disbursements are less constrained by historic ties between individual countries, appear to be reducing the share of aid to basic education and are instead focusing on secondary and post-secondary education.

The report now warns that governments in developing countries should devote more resources to education to secure the future.

“The World Bank has decreased aid to basic education from 63 per cent in 2005 to 43 per cent in 2013. European Union institutions, which gave 50 per cent of their total aid to basic education between 2002 and 2004, currently give only 40 per cent,” reads the report released last week.

The survey further revealed that the share of bilateral aid going to basic education from large donors has stagnated at 39 per cent since 2007.

“France, Germany and Japan continue to provide most of their aid to post-secondary education, largely to support students coming from these countries,” says report.

The United Kingdom has also cut aid to basic education from 73 per cent at the beginning of the decade to just 57 per cent between 2011 and 2013. The UK, however, increased funding to secondary education from 14 to 22 per cent over the same period. “The United States continues to devote close to 80 per cent of its aid to basic education,” reads the report.

Between 2012 and 2013, aid to secondary education grew by 16 per cent in low-income countries, the report showed. In lower-middle-income countries,aid to secondary education grew by 31 per cent in the same period. The report lists Kenya among the countries receiving little education donor funding.

“Kenya is receiving the equivalent of $10 (Sh1,000) per child in aid, which is less than a quarter of what children are receiving in other countries from donors,” the report showed.

Uganda is the least funded getting Sh600 per child annually.