48
World Bank Working Paper
Figure 3.5: Contribution of Public Financing by Level of Education (2007) 100 92%
92%
% of national financing
80 70% 60
40
38%
20 2% 0 Preschool
Primary
Secondary Level of education
TEVET
Higher
Sources: Tables 3.4 and 3.7.
1.
2.
3.
4.
The share of public funding for preschool is negligible (2 percent), which is consistent with the observation that the share of ECD in the public recurrent education expenditure is only 0.1 percent (see section II.1). Primary education is mostly funded by public resources (92 percent of the total recurrent cost), which is in line with the free policy at this level and the government’s goal to achieve the education MDG. Household contributions for the delivery of secondary education account for 30 percent of the total recurrent cost. This is lower than what can be observed on average in Africa (44 percent) and probably due to the higher public contribution to secondary education in Malawi than in most African countries and that the relative poverty of Malawian households. In higher education, the cost sharing structure between public and private funding is the same as in primary education, with 92 percent of the financing coming from public resources. This raises an equity issue in the way education public resources are allocated. Students in higher education are almost all from the wealthiest income quintiles of the country (see Chapter 5) and investment returns in higher education are mainly private, which results in much better salaries for university graduates than for individuals who drop out (see Chapter 8). It would be relevant to address this issue and discuss ways to reach a more equitable cost sharing of the higher education service delivery. As stated in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy MGDS, higher education is an important pillar for contributing to economic growth, in particular in the context of competition with neighboring SADC countries that have more developed higher education systems. Then, public financing of higher education makes sense to a certain extent.