Education budget reduced in terms of GDP

The allocation for the education sector in the proposed budget for the upcoming 2022-23 fiscal year has been reduced in terms of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The allocation is only 1.83 per cent of the GDP for the education sector for the fiscal year 2022-23. It was 2.08 per cent in the current fiscal year.

The Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in its budget reaction on Friday said Bangladesh’s average education expenditure as a percentage of GDP from 1979 to 2020 was the fourth-lowest among 45 LDCs.

The CPD said Bangladesh’s education expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 1.8 per cent in FY19 which was the lowest among 28 LDCs and the second-lowest among 104 countries in the world. At least 23 LDCs spent 2 per cent or more of their GDP on education in 2019.

According to the data from the World Bank, the government expenditure on education was 1.3 per cent of GDP in Bangladesh in 2019 whereas it was 3.5 per cent in India, 3.2 per cent in Afghanistan, 2.5 per cent in Pakistan, 4.1 per cent in the Maldives. The government expenditure on education was 4.4 per cent in Nepal, 6.9 per cent in Bhutan and 2.1 per cent in Sri Lanka in 2018.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal allocated Tk 81,449 crore for education in the proposed budget. It was Tk 71,954 crore for the current fiscal year.

The allocation in the 2022-23 fiscal year makes up 12.01 per cent of the total outlay. It was 11.91 per cent of the total outlay in the current financial year.

Ignoring longstanding appeals of educationists and the UNESCO recommendations for increasing the GDP’s share up to 6 per cent, the government allocated less than a third of the recommendation.

The stakeholders are frustrated over the proposed budget as the budget increased in terms of size but the allocation has reduced in terms of GDP.

They said the budget did not offer any new way out for the recovery of the learning loss of millions of students caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in the past two years.

There is also no specific directive on the need for capacity building of teachers for the proper implementation of new curricula.

Rasheda K Chowdhury, executive director of the Campaign for Popular Education (Campe), told The Business Post, “Education is a key tool to convert human resources to a skilled workforce. But, we observed that the education is not getting priority in the budget for a long time.”

She said allocation in education is not only an allocation, it is an investment for the future and sustainable development of the country.

There is political commitment and also goodwill for giving priorities but finally, the education sector is not getting the priority in the budget, she added

She further said there are talks on launching a mixed education system (physical and online) in the post-Covid-19 period which requires digital devices but the budget proposed 15 per cent VAT on imported laptops, which would push up the price of laptops.

The total public expenditure on education was 1.6 per cent of GDP in 1990, which rose to about 2 per cent in 2000 but it has been hovering around 2 per cent till now.

The CPD said the government has exempted Bengali medium schools but VAT on English medium schools continues to be at 5 per cent in the budget for FY23. They called for exempting the VAT.

The 15 per cent VAT on private academic institutions should be reduced to 10 per cent in FY23, said the CPD adding all taxes on imported books should be exempted in FY 23.