Sustainable financing for an equitable education system in Liberia

• In Event: Round-Table Session 1
  In Round-table Session: What’s Under the Sheep's Clothing? - Reflecting on the Controversial Outsourcing of Liberia's Education System to Private Actors

Proposal

The paper will situate the Partnership Schools for Liberia pilot within the wider context of financing for education in Liberia. It will outline how the extra $50 per child spent in pilot schools undermines some of the evaluation results (and how Bridge’s extraordinary additional investments exacerbated this problem for the evaluation). The paper will then look at present financing of public education and how this could be transformed through increasing the share of the budget to education (which falls short of the 20% benchmark), increasing the size of government revenues overall (for example taking action on tax incentives / aggressive tax avoidance), the sensitivity of spending (so that more resources are focused on basic education and equity) and the scrutiny of spending (to ensure more arrives in practice). Interventions in these four areas could make a breakthrough in the capacity of the government to deliver on its recently approved education sector plan – without having to resort to bringing in the private sector. Indeed, many other interventions would be considerably more cost-effective and sustainable than the present PSL approach.

Author

• David Archer, ActionAid