Tool 2.3: List of Core ECE Cost and Financing Indicators and Variants
ECE Public Costing and Financing Indicators
The main ECE costing and financing indicators are presented in Table 1 of the tool across three color-coded priority levels, based on their relative importance for understanding and projecting ECE public costs and financing.
Complementary indicators are listed together. For example, the lower priority indicator of "Public ECE expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product" follows the higher priority indicator of "Public ECE expenditure as a percentage of education expenditure".
Absolute priority indicators: These indicators are crucial for the most basic understanding of the public costs and financing of the sub-sector, and for modelling/projecting those costs.
High priority indicators: These indicators are useful to better understand the costs drivers and to make cost simulations of envisioned policies.
Lower priority indicators: These indicators will provide further details into the analysis and the cost projections.
The indicators in the tool refer to the national public (government) ECE costing and financing. In contexts where government financial management is decentralized, it may be important to compare indicator values across sub-national regions.
The indicators presented are those which relate to understanding and modelling public ECE costs and financing, and do not address private ECE costs and financing (unless explicitly stated).
The indicators are listed in two tables:
- Resources and expenditures: the levels of public investment in ECE, its composition, and the potential additional resources; and
- Strategic inputs: the main cost drivers of the ECE subsector, grouped under the sub-categories of: Teachers; Infrastructure; Learning materials; Social spending; Process costs; and Operational inputs.
In many cases, expenditure elements featured across indicators will have different data sources. A transparent process for reconciling various data sources will need to be determined.
Table 1: Resources and expenditures
Resource and expenditure indicators are crucial to understand the historic and current levels of public investment in ECE, its composition and the resources potentially available for the subsector.
You may filter the indicators by category/categories with the drop-down menu of the “Indicators” column.
Click on the eye icon for details on the indicators.
Note: If the ECE expenditure is not available, as it is sometimes bulked into the primary education budget, it is possible to make a rough estimation of it based on the number of teachers in ECE or, if that is not available either, the number of students. The rationale for this estimation is that the largest share of the recurrent budget is the teachers’ salary. Hence, the ECE expenditure can be estimated from the Total ECE and primary expenditure and the prorata of the number of teachers (or students). The two calculations generally lead to similar results; if results notably differ, and if there are no known data quality issues with either number of students or teachers to decide between the two, the average of the two calculations below could also be used.
ECE exp. ≈ [ Total ECE and primary exp. X Number of ECE teachers ] divided by Total number of ECE and primary teachers
or
ECE exp. ≈ [ Total ECE and primary exp. X Number of ECE students ] divided by Total number of ECE and primary students
Table 2: Strategic inputs
You may filter the indicators by (1) priority level with the “Priority level” drop-down menu; and by (2) categories of strategic inputs with the “Categories” drop-down menu.
Click on the eye icon for details on the indicators.
Annex
Click on "Read More" for examples of projections of ECE expenditures, by increasing levels of complexity and insight.
Model description including related indicators | Comments |
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Model 0: ECE expenditure = ECE expenditure as a % of education expenditure x Education expenditure |
This is not really a projection model, but a mere projection of the ECE budget as a percentage of the total education expenditure. No detail can be put into how ECE services will be managed or improved. |
Model 1: ECE expenditure = Public ECE Unit Cost x Projected number of learners |
This very basic model allows for the consideration of various targets of target population coverage (Gross or Net Intake Rates, translating into numbers of learners), and for an increase (for instance) of the unit cost to promote better learning conditions (although no detail can be provided as to why or how this unit cost would increase). |
Model 2: ECE expenditure = Teacher compensation / Percentage of the recurrent ECE expenditure spent on teacher compensation = Teacher Salary x Learner/Teacher Ratio x Projected number of learners / Percentage of the recurrent ECE expenditure spent on teacher compensation |
This model gives some more details about the teacher policy relating to ECE keeping in mind that teacher salaries are likely to be the main component of the ECE recurrent budget. Targets can be set for teacher remuneration, learner/teacher ratios and target population coverage. The remaining recurrent expenditure is expressed as a percentage of the total, which can for instance increase to promote better learning conditions. |
Model 3: ECE expenditure = Teacher compensation + Learning materials + Other recurrent costs |
These models include various levels of details on the recurrent expenditure other than teacher remuneration. In each case, an “other recurrent cost” estimate is expressed as a percentage of the total recurrent expenditure, to include all the elements that cannot be detailed. |
Model 4: ECE expenditure = Teacher compensation + Learning materials + Social + Inspections/pedagogic support + Infrastructure maintenance and operation + …. + Other recurrent costs |