The annual Comparative & International Education Society (CIES) conference brings together thousands of education experts from across academia, research institutions, NGOs, government departments and multilateral agencies to share up-to-date research and insights across a number of global education issues.
This year’s conference was held in Washington DC under the theme “improving education for a more equitable world”. Save the Children UK was invited to present on our ongoing work with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the World Bank looking into the relationship between climate change and education financing.
During the course of my week in DC, I attended several events on the issues most relevant to Save the Children’s work, including education financing and climate change. So, what did I learn? Three of my big takeaways were:
1. Innovative financing is a big buzzword but is not a panacea.
One of the greatest challenges to achieving universal quality primary and secondary education is investment – the financing gap to achieving SDG 4 is estimated to be as high as $200 billion per year.
It’s clear that we will not be able to scale up that level of investment from traditional sources, especially as governments around the world are facing budgetary pressures from high energy and food prices, slow economic growth, unemployment rates stuck above pre-Covid levels, and increasing occurrences of climate induced natural disasters.
In the context of this constrained spending from national governments and donors alike, many have been calling on new ‘innovative financing’ mechanisms for education as a solution. Innovative financing is a catch-all term that refers to new ways of scaling up public and private financing. Two commonly mentioned innovative financing techniques, for example, are blending public and private investment or using public funds to leverage additional private finance.
A few innovative financing programmes were highlighted at different events throughout the conference, including USAID’s Catalyze programme, which is mobilising blended finance for education, including for ECCE initiatives. There were also a few student loan opportunities for tertiary education highlighted, including the LEAP programme which offers affordable student loans and financial literacy support for students and several income share agreement (ISA) initiatives.
Many of these programs have shown varying degrees of promising initial results, but for primary and secondary education in the poorest countries, it’s clear that filling the financing gap will require progress on domestic resource mobilisation (DRM). An estimated 97% of funding to fill the gap in low and lower-middle income countries must come from domestic sources according to the Education Commission. Therefore, any serious conversations on fully funding education globally must including debt reform, improved tax systems, and strengthened public financial management systems.
2. Financing is not all about the volume – equity and efficiency are critical.
There is a general consensus about the existence of the education financing gap and the need for more money to achieve SDG 4. But too often the conversation can stop there. We have agreed upon international spending benchmarks, such as 15-20% of national budgets or 4-6% of GDP to be dedicated to education, but while these are important targets, they are not sufficient on their own.
According to GPE, around a third of domestic spending on education is inefficient. Increasing the total volume of funding, therefore, does not necessarily get us any closer to achieving good quality universal education.
We must also consider measures of equity (who is receiving that funding and who is being left behind?) and efficiency (are we spending in a way that optimises learning outcomes?). It was therefore very welcome to hear that GPE looks at volume, equity and efficiency measures in its results-based financing considerations.
However, unlike volume, we don’t have agreed upon international metrics for measuring equity and efficiency. This will continue to be a challenge, making it more difficult to monitor and improve outcomes at the global level.
3. Figuring out what the climate crisis means for education (and vice versa) is a top priority.
Some of the most well-attended sessions that I joined were those considering the impact of the climate crisis on education, and – importantly – education’s role in tackling the climate crisis. While it’s clear that the climate crisis is already impacting education systems for children on the front lines of the climate emergency - for example more than 2 million children had their education disrupted by severe flooding in Pakistan last year - data and evidence on the best ways to ‘climate-proof’ education systems remain insufficient, as does data on the best ways to leverage education for climate action.
There are several exciting initiatives ongoing to try and make progress in this area. For example, the Turn it Around project is a brilliant youth-led project reimagining the role of education in the context of the climate crisis, the comprehensive school safety framework (CSSF) is giving government officials the tools to hazard-proof their education systems, and our ongoing work with GPE and the World Bank is investigating the relationship between climate change and education financing.
Conclusions from CIES conference 2023.
The CIES conference had a packed agenda, with many concurrent events across many different education themes. The event is a great opportunity to discover some of the emerging research from across different countries and contexts, and much of this will be invaluable to learn from for Save the Children’s own programming and policy.
In particular, it was so welcome to see climate as a core and popular theme. We need more and more actors to recognise the impact that climate change has on education systems – and we will be looking to COP28 as an opportunity to ensure that education remains an integral pillar within climate dialogue on the global stage.
