Thanks to debt relief, enrolment at Kinyamaseke school more than doubled because the Ugandan government was able to introduce Universal Primary Education.'
Photo: Geoff Sayer / Oxfam
Is everyone in the world receiving a good quality education at the moment? No. There are still 100 million children around the world who are receiving no education at all and 60 per cent of these are girls. This is because girls are often needed to help with work in the home or because it is thought less important for girls to go to school than boys.
How can we make sure that everyone receives a good quality education?
There are many ways in which we can help. One way is through removing the debt repayments poorer countries have to make to richer ones.
What are debt repayments? The poorest countries in the world have had to make very large debt repayments since the 1980s. In the 1970s many poorer countries needed to borrow money from richer countries because they ran out of money. Then in the 1980s the amount of money they owed rose dramatically. This was because the cost of borrowing money from rich governments went up. At the same time, poorer countries were making less money from selling their goods (like cocoa and coffee) on the world market. This meant that they owed even more money to richer governments. As a result, many poor countries have been left with huge debt repayments which they cannot afford to make.
How does paying off debt help everyone receive a quality education? If governments did not have to spend so much of their money repaying their debts they would have more money for education. From the 1980s, the only way many governments of poorer countries could pay their debt repayments was to spend less money on other things. Often one of the first areas they spent less money on was education. Governments were often forced to do this by the two organisations that controlled the debt repayments, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
How have poor countries been affected by having to make large debt repayments for so many years?
By the 1990s, the majority of African countries were spending more in paying back their debt than they were on the education of their children. In countries like Tanzania, where education was free in the 1980s, they had to reintroduce school fees. This excluded millions of children from school because their parents then could not afford to pay these fees. At the same time teachers were paid less for their work, to the point where they could barely afford to live. This then led to a shortage of teachers in schools because people did not want to become teachers and live on low wages, and because teachers who were already teaching left to find better paid work.
Campaigners from across Wales joined forces to march the word 'P-O-V-E-R-T-Y' into the National Museum of Wales, to 'make it history.'
Photo: Craig Owen/Oxfam
Has anything been done to try and make things better? Yes. In 2000 there was a major global campaign called Jubilee 2000. This asked the governments of richer countries to cancel the debt owed by poorer countries so that they would not have to make debt repayments any more. At the same time, there was a great deal of campaigning around the world on the importance of education.
Also at this time many countries in Africa began to get debt relief under a programme called the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. This meant that they had to make fewer debt repayments. Most countries spent a lot of the extra money they now had on education. In particular the debt relief meant that countries like Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda could introduce free primary education.
How did debt relief help provide quality education for all?
Debt relief helped improve education in poorer countries because it meant there was more money for governments to spend. It also helped because it was a source of high quality money. This means that debt relief provided money that is guaranteed to be there for governments to use for the next 20 years. This makes a big difference, because it means that governments can plan for long-term goals in education, such as employing more teachers. For example, in Benin, 43 per cent of debt relief went to education, and was spent on employing more teachers in rural areas.
What needs to be done next? Although there have been some very positive changes since 2000, far more needs to be done. Many poorer countries still have great debts which they cannot afford to pay without harming their education systems. For example, this year Zambia will spend $156 million more on debt repayments than on education. Other countries are doing a little better, but still spend more on debt repayment than they do on primary education. The only way to ensure free education for all is through cancelling the debts completely. This would mean that there is more desperately needed money for education.
What else can be done? It is not only debt relief that will help all children to have a good education. Among other things, more and better aid from richer governments and a fairer world trade system will also help. For more information seeour simple guides to Aid and education and Trade and education.
