US$148 Billion Education-Financing Gap In Developing Countries

By Shingirai Vambe

The Global Week for Education (GAWE) has released an alarming amount of money in short globally for a sustainable, equal, for all to access basic education in the world, and developing countries being the most affected due to the vagaries of climate change and geo-politics, the Post can report.

In a communiqué GAWE shared with the Post On Sunday on May 24 2023, said US $148 billion was needed to close the education financing gap.

“The estimation of the annual education-financing gap in low and lower-middle income countries is US$148 billion. Additional cost due to Covid-19 related school closures risk increasing this gap by up to one-third, or between US$30-45billion,” reads the statement.

“alarmingly, global tax abuse is estimated at $483 billion from more than 100 countries will collectively participate in the GAWE to highlight these alarming data and call the attention of governments and international community to decolonise education financing now,” added GAWE.

The Global Action Week for Education 2023 said it is putting pressure towards a transformative and decolonising agenda for education financing through a national, regional and global education mobilisation campaign coordinated by GCE, amplifying the voices of the educational communities, activists and social organisations and movements, to demand the government and international communities to act of tax reforms by member states and removing of austerity measures.

“It is important that ministries of finances see education as an investment, and not a consumption thus they should be e paradigm shift and countries spending more on debt servicing than on education should be at the front of the queue for debt cancellation or renegotiations.” Said GAWE.

Added and said new mechanisms on debts were needed.

Zimbabwe not being spared, more and more children are being added to basic education assistance module (BEAM) under the ministry of Public service Labour and Social welfare, with the rising economic woes, even those with both parents are now being considered as vulnerable.
In 2021 most schools received their fees from government late after the invoices were being eroded by inflation and schools are now in the verge of collapse, with few parents resorting to pay them little they get towards tuition.

The Government if Zimbabwe is failing to pay the BEAM in time, with majority of vulnerable children now under the care of various organisations such as UNICEF, PLAN, UNESCO to mention just a few.

Efforts to get current statistics of children registered under the BEAM from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education spokesperson, Taungana Ndoro were fruitless. He didn’t to respond to the question sent before going to publish.

Meanwhile, Teachers’ Unions in Harare have called Victoria Munetsi, the new headmaster at Dumbabwe Secondary School in Makoni District, Manicaland, to order after dismissing teachers at the school, alleging overstaffing issues open link for more detail-https://youtu.be/ONOiqUUKX6s.