**<u>Table 3: Regional Decomposition of Public Education Spending Changes (%), 1998–2017</u>**

||Real change in<br>|Source of<br>|changes in public e<br>|ducation spending<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||public education<br>spending|Economic<br>growth|Total public<br>spending as a<br>share of GDP|Education<br>prioritization –<br>education spending as<br>a share of the total<br>government budget|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|
|East Asia and Pacific|251|215|69|-33|
|Europe and Central Asia|42|34|6|2|
|Latin America and the Caribbean|137|86|37|14|
|Middle East and North Africa|15|37|-8|-14|
|North America|134|189|13|-68|
|South Asia|81|75|22|-16|
|Africa|116|91|15|9|

_Source:_ World Bank calculations based on UIS and IMF data. _Note:_ Education spending is measured in PPP (constant 2015 dollars). Average percentage growth in all variables **– –** calculated as the percentage change from the four-year average in 1998 2001 to the four-year average in 2014 17, for all countries with data available in at least one year across both four-year periods. Column 1 shows the total percentage change in education spending. Columns 2 – 4 break down the overall change into its component parts (see Box 5). Column 1 is equal to the sum of columns 2 – 4 with small differences due to rounding errors.

Boosting the priority given to education in government budgets contributed to increased public education spending in Africa and Latin America but not in many other developing regions. Giving a higher priority to education accounted for 8 percent of the increase in public education spending in Africa and 10 percent in Latin America. Giving a higher priority to education combined with fast economic growth and increases in government spending as a share of GDP resulted in these two regions having the largest regional increases in public education spending. In all other regions except Europe and Central Asia, the share that education claimed in government budgets declined between 2000 and 2015.

# _2.4 Expanding Places versus Increasing per Student Spending_

On the whole, public spending per primary and secondary school student has risen steadily in low-income and middle-income countries (Figure 7). However, the per student average has grown much more rapidly in wealthier countries and has led to a widening of the per student spending gap between low-income and **–** middle-income countries. For example, in 1998 2001, lower-middle-income countries spent more than three times as much per primary school student than low-income countries ($522 in purchasing power parity **–** dollars compared to PPP $136). By 2014 17 they spent almost 4.5 times as much as low-income countries (PPP $916 compared to PPP $207).<sup>8</sup> The only exception to the upward trend in per student spending was **–** public spending on secondary school students in low-income countries. Between 1998–2001 and 2014 17, per secondary student spending for this group declined by 19 percent from PPP $418 to PPP $339. Since low-income countries’ overall spending on secondary education rose over the same period, the decline in per student spending resulted from faster growth in the number of students attending secondary school.<sup>9</sup>

> 8 Annex Table A3 reports per student spending for regional groupings. With the exception of secondary education, spending per school-aged child follows similar trends to those discussed in the main text and are reported in Annex Table A4.

> 9 Annex Table A4 reports spending per school-aged child, which increased for secondary school children in lowincome countries, unlike spending per student.

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