Short-Changing Education Is No Way to Invest in the World’s Future

Short-Changing Education Is No Way to Invest in the World’s Future
Students protest outside the National Assembly to demand a larger budget for university education, Quito, Ecuador, Sept. 9, 2021 (AP photo by Dolores Ochoa).

On Oct. 27, Rishi Sunak, the U.K.’s chancellor of the exchequer, announced the government’s education budget, including additional spending earmarked to help students overcome the disruptions introduced by the coronavirus pandemic. Though billed as a boost to education expenditures, as Sunak himself admitted, the government’s current plans would only return per pupil spending—which was cut drastically as part of broader budgetary austerity imposed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis—to 2010 levels by 2024. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson told the Financial Times, Sunak’s spending plan reflects the “remarkable lack of priority” given to education under the U.K.’s Conservative government.

At almost the same time, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was reneging on promises he made at the Global Education Summit, held mostly virtually in late July. Although the Nigerian government plans to increase its education expenditure in 2022, the allocation as a proportion of GDP will fall considerably short of the UNESCO-recommended levels of 15 to 20 percent of GDP, to which Buhari had committed. 

At the close of that same summit, Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth, warned Buhari and other world leaders not to “sleepwalk into a global education crisis.” That those leaders are ignoring her advice just a few months afterward is disappointing, but not surprising. 

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article as well as three free articles per month. You'll also receive our free email newsletter to stay up to date on all our coverage:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having your own personal researcher and analyst for news and events around the globe. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of 15,000+ articles
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday
  • Weekly in-depth reports on important issues and countries
  • Daily links to must-read news, analysis, and opinion from top sources around the globe, curated by our keen-eyed team of editors
  • Your choice of weekly region-specific newsletters, delivered to your inbox.
  • Smartphone- and tablet-friendly website.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review