User Fees in Primary Education Donald Bundy and Raja Bentaouet Kattan The World Bank Human Development Network June 16, 2005

UNAIDS InterAgency Task Team on Education (IATT)

Education and HIV/AIDS source: UNAIDS A WINDOW OF HOPE?

A Social Vaccine? HIV prevalence by education category, Rural Uganda, Individuals aged De Walque and J Whitworth, MRC Uganda (2002)

Accelerating the Education Sector Response to HIV/AIDS in Africa Share information and build capacity Strengthen stakeholder coordination Build networks Develop effective education sector plans

Accelerating the Education Sector Response to HIV/AIDS in Africa Accélérer la Réponse du Secteur de L’éducation au VIH/SIDA en Afrique UNAIDS InterAgency Task Team on Education ONUSIDA L’équipe Inter-agences pour L’éducation

Development Partners include: UN System: UNESCO, UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, ILO, WFP, WHO, World Bank… Bilateral donors: UK, USA, Norway, Canada, Ireland… Civil Society: Association for the Development of Education in Africa, Mobile Task Team, Education International – teacher unions, Partnership for Child Development …

Orphans and Vulnerable Children Removing barriers to education Providing care and support

User Fees: What are they for? Fees are one way of financing education In Indonesia, fees cover 8% of all education costs In Cambodia, fees cover over 40% of education costs In India, 76% of the fees are for qualitative inputs-textbooks and learning materials

User Fees: Are they a barrier to access? Student numbers rise dramatically after fee abolition in some countries Uganda (1996): 3.4 to 5.7million Tanzania (2002): 1.5 to 3.0 million Kenya (2003): 5.9 to 7.2 million

User Fees: growing momentum for abolition? 1994: Malawi : Uganda, Lesotho, Tanzania : Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, Timor Leste, Kenya, Benin, Viet Nam, Cameroon, Ghana Planning: DRC, Rwanda, South Africa (for the poorest) But 76 of 92 countries surveyed had fees in 2005

Malawi Free Primary Education: mixed results Pre-FPE less than half of children in school FPE announced in 1994 Enrollments went from 1.9m to 3m (50% increase) Backlog of 13,000 teachers and 38,000 classrooms Low mobilization of resources Insufficient external support Declining levels of community participation Deteriorating quality –pupils:permanent classroom 119:1 Declining enrollments/low retention -Out of the 1.3 million students who entered grade 1 in 1994, only 300,000 completed the cycle in 2002 SACMEQ results show that only 30% achieved minimum comprehension in Grade 5 and only 1% adequate level

Uganda Free Primary Education: the power of planning UPE announced in 1996 Enrollments increased from 3.1m to 5.3m (70% increase) Education emergency that could have resulted in a backlash against UPE Increased resource allocation to primary education (from 9% to more than 26% of total recurrent budget ) Improved sector management Increased transparency and accountability of spending at school level (share of funds reaching schools has risen to about 90 percent, from 28 percent in1996) Highly productive donor coordination (over $400 million in external support to education since 1997) Ensuing Implementation challenges-concerns for deteriorating quality (primary completion rate 61% ); Increased demand for secondary education

Abolishing User Fees- Complexities and Implications User Fees include: tuition fees, textbook charges, compulsory uniforms, PTA /community contributions, school-based activity fees (exam fees etc..) Represents 16% of household expenditure The highest proportion of household spending on educational fees is for levies and dues, not tuition Illegal levies remain after fee abolition

How the costs added up in Kenya 1.2 million additional children Government – supplemental budget provision $60 million reallocated from other sectors Donor Support: UNICEF- $2.5 million; WB-$50 million in grants; DFID- $6 million

User Fees: Issues in addressing abolition Plan carefully as part of an integrated vision for EFA Address supply issues Put in place adequate revenue substitution (eg capitation grants) that is immediately effective Avoid levy substitution Provide interim measures to mitigate impact on the poor and vulnerable

User Fees: UNICEF/WB actions Situation analysis – where are fees a barrier today? Practitioner experience – what are the practical lessons learned? Joint assistance to countries – how can international agencies better support and accelerate fee abolition?

User Fees: World Bank Position The World Bank does not support user fees in primary education