According to UNESCO, education lags behind other global development sectors in private sector contributions at only 5%  and experts expect the education funding to stagnant until 2015. This lack of funding will irreparably harm the Education for All Goals that should be met by 2015, says UNESCO.

In a recently released policy paper UNESCO argues that the private sector should increase its contributions to education since the levels are currently incredibly low and hover around $638 million dollars annually – far more than a billion dollars less than the amount it takes to send every child in the world to school. This is critically important especially as the World Economic Forum gets underway this week and organizations and NGOs will gobble up private section partnerships for the year.

The 2012 EFA Global Monitoring Report makes four recommendations for improving and increasing funds from the private sector to education:

1.      All private organizations should be transparent about the amount and purpose of their commitments. This would allow scrutiny to ensure that business interests do not override collective goals, while also giving information on the amount of resources available to fill the EFA financing gap.

2.      To have a lasting impact on EFA, private organizations need to provide sufficient funding over several years to assure the sustainability of initiatives because education is a long-term endeavour

3.      Better evaluations need to be carried out of the impact of private sector interventions.

4.      Private organizations should align their support with government priorities and countries’ needs. The Global Partnership for Education could play a larger role in pooling and disbursing funds to this end.

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