Households' costs for education

In spite of the efforts made by many developing countries to achieve the universal quality primary education for all, it appears that there are still school-aged children who do not go to school or leave school at early stage. The majority of the children out of school are girls, children from ethnic minorities and children from poor families even when Governments are providing sufficient school facilities and number of teachers.

This research programme on household costs of education will help in understanding the burden of educational costs for the parents and evaluate their impact on the decision for schooling. The aim here is to describe and estimate the education expenditures born by the households and assessing to which extent they constitute a barrier to participating in education. The knowledge of the relative weight of the economic factors on decisions taken by the households not to send their children to school will help governments elaborate appropriate policies to address the inadequacy in demand.

Therefore the study will focus on the following main questions:

• How much families are spending for education?
  
  
• What is the impact of households’ costs for access to and participation in education?

The answers to these questions will contribute to the knowledge about the incidence of household education costs on the progress toward achieving universal quality primary education in developing countries. On the basis of multi-dimensional country experiences, surveys, lessons learned and best practices, this research will influence the policy dialogue at the country, regional and international levels in the area critical for educational policy analysis and advice, pertinent changes and reforms by the governments and civil society, as well as agendas of development partners. 

Through these outcomes, it is expected that Governments would be able to design and implement policies reducing the economic barrier to school for the poorest, through reduction of the relevant household educational costs, including school fees.

See also Fee-free education policies