sample of 34 countries 60% of those which received structural adjustment loans experienced declines in
educational expenditure per capita, whilst the majority of those that did not receive such loans experienced
increases (Kakwani, Makonnen and Van der Gaag 1989).
There is some evidence that primary education expenditure as a whole may have been protected in some
Sub Saharan African countries. Its share of total educational spending appears to have increased more
frequently than it decreased (Berstecher and Carr-Hill 1990) but, where population growth was high, per
capita expenditure may still have been falling. Partly as a result of cost recovery strategies being pursued,
parental expenditure per primary school child appears to have increased in some countries to reach 7-20%
of GNP per capita in Zambia, Mali, Sierra Leone and Togo (Jespersen 1991).
More generally Stewart argues that in many countries stabilisation and adjustment policies in combination
with other factors have had an adverse impact on the poorest slowing and sometimes reversing progress in
educational development. Thus in the first period of adjustment in the Philippines poverty increased
substantially and educational expenditure per child fell significantly. Despite this it seems that some
countries have succeeded in combining adjustment, growth and social progress (e.g. Indonesia) and others
have been able to sustain social progress during a period of adjustment in the absence of much growth
(e.g.
Noss's comprehensive review of the impact of adjustment on education details the analytic problems
which make it difficult to reach simple conclusions and cites a recent UNDP report which argues that
"problems of data and methodology have thus far been so severe as to preclude any systematic evaluation
of the social impacts of adjustment programmes" (shapelier and Tabatabai 1989). However, this has not
prevented many from trying. As early as 1984 Hicks and Kubisch explored the effects of consecutive year
reductions in government expenditure on social sector spending in 37 countries and concluded that it
suffered less than other sectors. They noted large differences between cases in their sample and recognised
the limits of its representativeness. This analysis suffers from being insensitive to longer term and
cumulative effects that may result from reduced government expenditure under conditions of austerity and
adjustment (Lewin 1987:57) social sector spending is likely to be difficult to reduce rapidly since it is
concentrated in salaries, the effects of adjustment may only become apparent in the medium term as
salaries are eroded by inflation and fewer new staff are hired.
Vulnerability coefficients (the ratio of percentage change in educations share to percentage change in total
government expenditure) can be used to indicate whether education is more or less protected than other
sectors. For Guinea this coefficient was 0.64 between 1986 and 1989 (real educational spending fell by
25% but the government budget fell by 40% and education was relatively protected); by contrast for
Malawi over the period 1982-88 it was 5.5 (government spending fell by 3.3% but educational spending
fell by 17.4% and education appears to have been more vulnerable than other sectors). Cornia, Jolly and
Stewart (1987) present data suggesting that during recession education has suffered more than other
sectors and is therefore more vulnerable though this study uses data that pre-date most structural
adjustment programmes.
Amongst the recent studies reviewed by Noss (1991) on the impact of adjustment on education Gallagher