Academic year 2023: how much has the state invested in education?

March 13th starts 2023 academic yearaccording to the schedule of the Ministry of Education, despite the fact that half of the country’s public schools are in a deplorable state, but how much does the state invest in the education of students?

This year the sector has budget about 42 billion soles, that is 16.9% more than in 2022, which is the most profitable item, but the head of Minedu, Oscar Becerra, admits that this figure is not enough.

“1041 schools are in danger of collapsing (…) We will make sure that the children and youth who return to their classrooms are not threatened by the roof falling. budget and we are working with the Ministry of Economy on an additional budget to respond to this emergency, because this is something for which no one was ready, those who should have been ready were not ready, ”he commented a few days ago in the RPP.

How much was invested?

Becerra claims that the infrastructure gap is more than 152 billion soles and that at the current level of investment, it will take the country about 10 years to have well-equipped schools with basic services.

But how much was invested in education in 2022? economist Peruvian Institute of Economics (IPE)Fernando Gonzalez, clarifies that about 3 billion soles were not spent last year.

“In the field of education, the execution was 72%, that is, about 3 billion soles were not executed throughout the sector,” he said.

Gonzalez notes that, speaking specifically about budget earmarked for investment in school infrastructure were the least spent by local governments.

“7 billion soles were allocated for school infrastructure, of which 5.6 billion soles were executed, that is, 1.4 billion soles were not executed, mainly local and regional authorities that did not fulfill 1/3 of their budget,” he said.

A study by the Society for Foreign Trade (Comex Peru) shows that Huanuco, Cajamarca and Ancash These are the regions that spent the least on educational projects, as they completed less than four sols for every ten sols assigned to them.

In terms of municipalities, Pasco and Amazonas are the furthest behind, using less than half of their budgets, but what is the reason for the low level of public execution in the education sector?

Leti Gomez, economic research analyst at Comex, notes that these low levels of execution reflect the availability of resources to improve educational infrastructurebut they are not used optimally and this is not a new or recent problem.

“This is due to low technical and operational capabilities in the executive departments for the implementation of these investment projects. This means that poor-quality pre-investment projects are consistently approved, leading to delays, cost overruns and paralyzed operations,” he told RPP.

The specialist added that it would be possible to build 17 high achiever schools.

Even though education is the biggest budget item overall, at the end of the year it is one of the portfolios that puts the least money into student welfare, added to this by high ministerial turnover and the impact the pandemic has left.