We have no idea what countries are spending on education

Listen to some international education people and you get the impression that the education problem is mostly solved if we could just spend more money. The story goes something like “Poor countries spend X on education, if they could 1.5X then all the kids could get a good education, they can’t afford 1.5X, so we should fill the gap with aid."

The reality is, even if it was the case that just filling the gap would solve the problem (which is dubious to say the least) , we don’t really even know what the gap is.

This is Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics:

"governments need detailed and disaggregated data to ensure that their resources are allocated equitably and effectively within their education systems. At the same time, donors need the data to better evaluate whether the aid they provide is an incentive for governments to increase spending commitments or if they are crowding-out domestic resources.

For the moment, the availability and completeness of education finance data is unfit for these purposes, with less than one-half of countries able to regularly report key information, such as total government expenditure on education” (my emphasis)

Nevermind the purpose of accountability and transparency to the citizens of developing countries...

Good luck to the new Commission on Financing Global Education!