The UK must not walk away from its commitment to education
4 min read
Deprioritising support for global education risks trashing the UK's reputation and devastating consequences for millions of the world's poorest children.
Whilst all eyes were on the EU Summit this week, the UK is also hosting the world’s largest annual gathering of education and skills ministers.
The popularity of the event is testimony to the leading role that the UK plays in global education.
Overseas students come here to attend our universities, British companies export education services around the world, and UK aid has been central to getting millions of children from the poorest countries into school.
However, in preparation for cutting the aid budget to its lowest level in over a quarter of a century, education is on the chopping block.
Appearing before the International Development Committee last week, the Minister for International Development, Baroness Chapman, stated that UK support for education will be deprioritised.
This will trash our reputation as a long-standing supporter of education around the world and, worse still, will have devastating consequences for millions of the world’s poorest children, who will be denied the opportunity to go to school.
Girls like Mapenzi from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who, because of DRC’s brutal civil war, was sent to her grandparents in another part of the country for safety.
Unable to afford to send her to school, Mapenzi’s education would have stopped if it weren’t for the UK-funded project that allowed Save the Children to step in, pay her school fees, and provide her with the basic supplies she needed to study.
This was made possible by the UK-supported Girls Education Challenge, which for twelve years transformed the lives of 1.6m marginalised girls across 17 countries by providing the funds and know-how to give them an education.
Mapenzi’s story is a real-life example of what will be lost if the UK steps away from education. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe there are millions of other boys and girls who will miss out learning if the UK turns its back on the sector.
We understand the reality of the difficult choices that now need to be made as a result of the swingeing cuts imposed on the aid budget.
The world is grappling with multiple, overlapping crises — climate change, unprecedented conflict, record levels of displacement, and growing inequality.
Our appeal to the government to rethink its decision on education isn’t because we think it's more important than the other challenges we face; it is because education is central to solving them.
It is also the cornerstone to economic growth and prosperity, which the minister says will drive decisions about how UK aid is allocated.
She can still make good on that by affirming the UK’s commitment to the two global funds that support education — the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the fund for education in emergencies.
Since 2021, GPE has supported the education of 253m children, trained 1.9m teachers, and constructed or improved 36,000 classrooms.
ECW, on the other hand, ensures that the growing number of children caught up in conflicts and crises get an education. UK support for ECW, which it helped establish in 2016, has directly supported 11.4m children in places like Sudan, Yemen and Bangladesh.
If the UK decides to stop bilateral investments in education, supporting these two global funds will help ensure that children living in poverty and affected by conflict have a chance to go to school.
Crucially, it also means that they will acquire the skills needed to build a better future for themselves, their families, and communities.
Faced with the task of implementing the cuts to aid we now urge the government to make the best use of the funds that remain.
Working with other governments, both developing and developed, through continued membership of and support of the education global funds will do exactly that.
Doing so will also send a message to the world that we still believe in the potential of children and in the importance of allowing them to learn and develop through access to a quality education.
The education ministers who the UK is hosting in London this week face enormous challenges — 70 per cent of ten-year-olds in low and middle-income countries can not read and understand a simple sentence.
They need to know that they have our political and practical support as they work to deliver the global promise that every child will be in school and learning.
If the government is serious about its commitment to growing opportunity and improving lives abroad, albeit with much less money, it must minimise the harm caused by the decision to cut aid and affirm its commitment to education.
Bambos Charambolous is the Labour MP for Southgate and Wood Green, and Lord Michael German is a Liberal Democrat Peer. They are Co-Chairs of the APPG on Global Education.
