Promoting accountability and enhancing efficiency： Using national education accounts to track expenditure flows

Increasing accountability and efficiency in the use of public and out-of-pocket financing in education are critical to realizing the maximum impact of the meager allocations to education in most developing countries. While broad estimates and numbers are routinely collected by most national ministries and state departments of education, the lack of accuracy and reliability as well as the obtuse nature of recording and presentation of the data does not facilitate any serious policy use. A major advance in this area has been brought about by the development of NEA （National Education Accounts）, which is a new tool for measuring education expenditures in a systematic policy-~endly manner. In essence, NEAs measure the ＂financial pulse＂ of an education system, answering 4 key questions： Who is financing education？ How much do they spend？ How are funds distributed across different education providers, levels and activities？ Who benefits from or receives the services？ NEAs gather information on all spending from public, private and donor sources, and provide a snap-shot of all expenditures on education in the state or country. While not an auditing tool, it provides real time information on the flow of funds that can be used for evidence-based decision-making. It provides information to policy-makers, enabling them to discern systcm-wide inequities and identify areas that require changes in policy. In addition, the use of a standard classification of expenditures allows for data from NEAs to be comparable between and within countries. This paper provides an assessment of accountability and efficiency in the use of public and private resources in the education sector in 2 states of Nigeria. Using comparative data from implementation of education accounts in 2 states of Nigeria, it presents a breakdown of education spending by public and private sources as well as donor agencies, by types of providers, by geographical regions and by category of expenditures. It analyzes educational expenditures for the 2 states in the context of state government priorities for education, and proposes a novel way of tracking trends in education spending as a means for policy-makers to organize a strategic vision supported by resources and to evaluate the outcome of policies.