The Share of Development Budget for Education Has Severely Decreased

The Open Data Iran database is an innovation project aimed at collecting data related to Iran in one place and presenting it in easily accessible formats. Radio Farda, in collaboration with this institution, publishes a collection of articles. The right to free education, at least until the end of the secondary education period, is recognized in the Iranian constitution, as in many other countries around the world. This right imposes a heavy duty on the government to maintain the quantity and quality of universal and free education in Iran. Examining the share of education in the government's budget and Iran's economy can reveal the trends in government spending and investments in the education sector. From this perspective, this note examines the developments in education budgets in Iran from 2008 to 2016, distinguishing between current and development budgets. The review shows that although the share of education in the public budget has increased during this period, the composition of education expenditures has shifted more towards current expenditures, reducing the share of development and educational investment. In 2016, the educational budget in Iran was nearly 51 trillion tomans, accounting for about 15 percent of the country's public budget. In 2008, however, the total educational budget was about 12 trillion tomans, which held a nearly 13 percent share of the public budget. Analyzing this time frame shows that the share of education in the public budget fluctuated between 2009 and 2012 and had an upward trend after 2012. Chart 2 below shows that during most of the years examined in this note, the growth rate of the education budget was less than the annual inflation rate. This situation can mean a decrease in the purchasing power of educational materials, equipment, and aids in schools, as well as a reduction in budgets for building new schools and renovating existing ones. This trend seems to have reversed since 2015, with the growth rate of the education budget exceeding the inflation rate. Continuing this trend could help compensate for the backlogs caused by inflation in the years before 2015. It is also essential to note that all these figures are calculated based on the 100 percent realization of the figures announced in budget laws. The reason for this assumption is the lack of published realized budget figures broken down by various sectors. However, we know that approximately in these years, the realization rate of the current budget was around 85 percent, and the realization rate of the development budget was less than 60 percent, meaning that the per capita educational budget could be even lower than the amount calculated based on budget laws. Significant changes in the composition of the educational budget are calculated and allocated under two titles: current expenditures and development expenditures. Current expenditures include items such as salaries and wages paid to teachers, professors, and staff, daily operating costs of organizations, schools, and universities, as well as costs for purchasing supplies and consumables. The share of these current expenditures from the announced educational budget in Iran has always been much higher than the development budget, and interestingly, this share has grown from less than 82 percent in 2008 to more than 93 percent in 2016. On the other hand, the share of the development budget in the education sector, which includes items such as the renovation and construction of schools, procurement of durable educational supplies, and modernization of educational tools, has decreased from 18 percent in 2008 to less than 7 percent in 2016. This severe decline, when considered alongside the consistently incomplete realization of development budgets, indicates that the pressure on education budgets in Iran has entirely shifted to the development budget. The share of educational investment (development budget) in the educational budget of the Iranian government has sharply decreased, while looking at news and statements from Iranian officials shows that this cannot be due to a lesser need for investment in the Iranian education system. Rather, it indicates that educational investments necessary to maintain the quality and quantity of education in Iran have been sacrificed to the increasing burden of current expenditures in the Iranian education system. Budgetary statistics from 2008 to 2016 indicate a growth in the share of education in Iran's public budget. However, the notable point relates to the composition of the education budget, which has shifted more in favor of current expenditures during this time frame. In such a way that in these years, the share of the development budget (investment) from the total budget of the education sector has sharply decreased, and governments have practically failed to find a solution to compensate for this situation. This trend could be a warning for the decline in the software quality and the increasing hardware vulnerability of the Iranian education system in the coming years.