The Education Commission (or the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity) has submitted its first budget proposal to jump-start the push on global education equity for 2030.
The latest report from the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, popularly known as the ‘Education Commission’, urges all countries and multilateral financial organizations to increase their education allocations. This will serve as the budget foundation for the global campaign on education equity by 2030.
Education 2030 is a global education agenda that forms part of United Nations’ (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), all of which make up the UN’s Agenda for 2030. Goal number 4 of these SDGs is “ensuring inclusive and quality education for all and promoting lifelong learning”. The global targets aim to encourage action in the “5 Ps” of critical importance, namely, people, partnerships, planet, peace, and prosperity, over the next 15 years.
Around 600 million children across the world today are either out of school or unable to get basic learning outcomes, the report adds. With this trend, an estimated 1.5 billion adults will not get any education beyond primary school by 2030 and today’s employment rate will be halved because of the imminent automation across many industries. This will lead to at least a quarter of the world’s population — particularly in India, the Middle East, and Africa — living in extreme poverty.
To solve the problem, the commission, co-convened by President Joko Widodo, submitted the first budget proposal for global education equity. This will address the issue on providing education to around 1.3 billion kids across low- and middle-income nations.
The global education plan says countries should apply international learning best practices and increase domestic public spending on education to US$2.7 trillion by 2030 from the estimated US$1 trillion in 2015. This is calculated to be up to 5.8 percent of the gross domestic product.
The global agenda also calls for collaborative efforts and raised commitment among multilateral development banks, where 15 percent of their combined budgets should be contributed to the campaign funds and its relevant programs. This would generate an estimated US$20 billion yearly contribution by 2030 from the meager US$3.5 billion today.
In addition, a financing agreement through a consolidated effort among donors, multilateral institutions, and developing countries will help raise an overall assistance to US$35 per child yearly by 2030. Cost-effective blending grants and loan financing programs will boost the agenda’s estimated funding sources.
UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chairman of the Education Commission Gordon Brown explained in a statement on Monday, September 19, that the evidence presented to the commission has proven that “education is the best anti-poverty investment the world can make.”
Brown expressed his confidence that with the right combination of investment, reform, mobilization and collaboration of domestic and international finance “we can be the first generation in history in which every single child is at school”.
Feature image via HD.org; image from kremlin.ru.
