Spending on pre-primary education accounts for less than 1 per cent of the international community’s aid to education - equivalent to just 34 cents per child, per year - according to analysis by Cambridge University academics for global children’s charity Theirworld.
Research shows that pre-primary education is crucial to a child’s development and children who miss out on early years learning fall behind even before they start primary school. Children enrolled in at least one year of pre-primary education are more likely to develop critical skills and are less likely to drop out of school.
Despite this, spending on pre-primary education remains consistently low, with donors on average committing 37 times more to post-secondary education, the analysis shows. Eight of the world’s top 30 donors to education give nothing to pre-primary education, including the Netherlands, Sweden, Qatar and Saudi Arabia [see graph].
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