Critical Warning from UNESCO: Education is Experiencing the Deepest Crisis of the Last Decades

A new report prepared by UNESCO, affiliated with the Birleşmiş Milletler, reveals that the global education system is experiencing one of the most severe financial crises of the past few decades. Financial aid provided by the international community to the field of education is estimated to decrease by 30 percent between 2023 and 2027. This dramatic decline has the potential to deeply affect low- and middle-income countries in particular. World leaders and field experts came together at the Eğitimin Dönüşümü Zirvesi (TES+4) to address this deepening crisis and find solutions. It is emphasized that joint policies to be developed are of vital importance to prevent the increase in global inequalities.

According to the institution's Global Education Monitoring report, international education aid contracted by 8 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year. At the pre-primary, primary, and lower secondary levels, which cover basic education, this funding cut reached a much steeper 15 percent. Middle-income countries have lost more than 21 percent of the education funds they received since 2023. In states such as Afganistan, Liberya, Mali, and Nijer, the cut in funds concerningly exceeded the 40 percent threshold. Education has come to receive only a 7.5 percent share in development aid, which is the lowest level in the past twenty years.

Along with this sharp decline in education investments, the massive debt burden on governments is also among the main factors negatively affecting the system. According to the 'Debt and Education' analysis presented at the summit, 113 countries, home to 6.1 billion people, allocate more money to paying off public debts than to education expenditures. In low-income states, debt payments have reached almost four times the education budgets. In the eighteen most indebted countries, debt service expenses are at least five times the amounts allocated to education systems. UNESCO warns that this situation unfortunately leads to education, which has fixed and recurring expenses such as teachers' salaries within the budget equation, being the first sector to be sacrificed.

Birleşmiş Milletler data highlighting the global dimension of the crisis shows that the annual education financing gap in low and lower-middle-income countries has reached approximately 97 billion dollars. While this massive gap continues to grow rapidly, the disproportionate ratio between military expenditures and education investments is also drawing attention. So much so that the amount spent by world governments on military defense alone in 37 hours in 2025 is stated to be equivalent to all international aid made to education over a year. Experts state that education, which faces budget cuts during crises, directly undermines economic growth and social development in the long run. For this reason, it is argued that cutting education funds should actually be considered a major blow to the future of countries.

To provide practical solutions to governments, UNESCO published a technical guide that allows countries to convert part of their external debts into education investments. The school construction agreement signed between Fildişi Sahili and Fransa, benefiting 30 thousand students, is one of the successful examples of this system. In addition, Mısır's conversion of its debt to Almanya into school feeding programs and the debt conversion project between İspanya and Peru prove the effectiveness of the model. At the summit, the integration of artificial intelligence into education processes and how technology can be used without diminishing the role of teachers were also discussed. The event, where the destructive effects of climate change and global crises on education systems were addressed, holds great importance in terms of shaping the global education agenda beyond 2030.