Published Articles on ‘Budgets and Education Financing’
Balochistan Education Budget – One Step Backwards
Despite a significant increase of 19 per cent in the total outlay of the Balochistan budget, the education budget shows reduced allocations for non-salary and development budgets. While the global focus is on increasing education budgets so that children have better access to quality education, Balochistan has substantially decreased its provincial share of education this year. The cuts on development and non-salary budgets for education, raise a question mark on the commitment of the Balochistan government towards education.
K-P Education Budget – good news & possible glitches
Budgets provide an insight into a government’s policy priorities and are a means of knowing if the popular political rhetoric is being backed up by adequate budgetary allocations or not. Education has always been at the centre stage of budgetary debates and provincial comparisons. This year, all the provinces have earmarked significant portions of their budgets for education. Let’s have a look at what K-P has allocated for education in the budget for the upcoming financial year 2016-17 and which areas will be funded with the allocations.
Financing Education in K-P
Education reforms cannot bring significant gains unless these are backed by political commitments not only in terms of support for the reforms, but also in the form of committing to spend sufficient resources on them, proportionately and efficiently. K-P’s education budget has been increasing over the years, however, the pace of increase has slowed down in recent times. It is high time we started investing in our future generations and political rhetoric is backed by earmarking significant part of the provincial budget for education.
No Participation
Globally, avenues for citizens’ empowerment and listening to their voice in policymaking are being explored and implemented with reasonable success. However, public participation in more technical areas like budget-making, ensuring transparency in the process and more importantly holding governments accountable, is a nascent exercise. Despite some preliminary efforts, the concept of public participation in budget-making has not taken root in Pakistan as subsequent governments have disenfranchised people from using this right of participation.
Budget Transparency and Accountability
It is time that effective mechanisms and opportunities are created to hold the government accountable for planning, managing and utilising public funds. This is only possible with meaningful opportunities for citizens and the civil society to participate in the budget process and a strong oversight by the legislature and the audit institutions. This way not only improved and efficient resource allocation can be ensured but also a sustainable link between data, policies and budgets can be established.
Education Finance Increasing in Budget
Pakistan is investing significantly on education, however, despite the commitment, there is still a long way to ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education opportunities for all children in the country. The educational challenge faced by Pakistan is significantly linked with the way financial resources are allocated, spent and monitored. Efforts are being made to improve the effectiveness of available financial resources and it is hoped that such sustained efforts would help in effectively responding to the challenges faced by public education sector in Pakistan.
Punjab Education Budget
The education budget for the Punjab, as a share of the total budget has declined considerably. The education budget saw an increase of Rs. 50.6 billion in 2015-16, a significant rise of 19.5 per cent over the allocated budget in 2014-15. The amount of Rs. 310.2 billion earmarked for education in 2015-16 constitutes 21.4 percent of the total provincial budget for Punjab; going down from 24 percent in 2014-15. The percentage share of education in Punjab’s overall budget has gone down from 26 percent in 2013-14 to 21.4 percent in 2015-16.
State of Education Financing in Pakistan
It is encouraging to see all the provinces allocating significant amount of funds for education; highlighting the policy shift towards provision of quality education. However, merely increasing the budgets will not solve all the problems our education system is facing. Proper utilization of allocated budgets, earmarking significant amount of funds for development and non-salary components and higher spending on in-service and pre-service teachers training are some of the steps which can ensure a better educational system in the country.