Page 6 - Education for Development:George Psacharopoulos University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

4 ᐿ࿲ၾආӉj઺ԃٙɢඎ

World-wide, 123 million youth aged 15 to 24 lack basic reading and

writing skills, over 60 per cent of which are women (United Nations, 2013b). In
OECD countries, about 20% of students perform below Level 2, considered the
baseline level of proficiency in science that all students are supposed to attain by

the time they leave compulsory education (OECD, 2018).

Financing

A common complain of education Ministers, is that they are short-
changed in the country’s budgetary allocations. International comparisons of

public spending on education are used as an argument for requesting additional
funds for education. Lack of finance is the most cited reason for failing to
meet education targets, calling for increased foreign aid (Oxfam, 2002; Global

Campaign for Education, 2003).
There is a large variation between countries on what is spent on education
ranging between 2% and 7% of their GDP. Education expenditure seems to

be a very sensitive matter, many countries appearing with “m”, i.e., missing,
in international data bases (e.g., OECD, 2017). Yet there is no relationship
between education expenditure and school performance. Figure plots education

expenditure per secondary student in US$ PPP against students’ score in PISA.

Employment

Every country faces labor market imbalances resulting to unemployment.

Several policies have been devised and applied to fix the problem, none really
succeeding. Typical policies amount to introducing a technical/vocational
element in the school curriculum and providing out of school training. Education
policy aimed at improving the employment prospects of graduates seem to have