Education outcomes in the Pacific are faltering. Across much of the region, participation in formal education is declining, along with graduation rates and academic performance. Both domestic and international funding for education has waned as economic shocks and competing priorities have shifted spending away from the education sector.
Combined with the region’s growing “youth bulge” and wider demographic pressures, these trends pose a serious risk to the region’s development outlook, and, in the extreme, social stability.
Both participation and performance in education show worrying trends. Average primary school attendance in most Pacific countries has fallen since the early 2010s. The 2021 Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA), the region’s standardised test program, shows that over half of Year 4 and Year 6 students did not meet minimum proficiency levels in reading, while more than a third failed to reach the same benchmark in numeracy. Some areas are particularly worrying. Year four students scored lower for numeracy in 2021 than in any year since the start of the PILNA system in 2011.
While Covid-related school closures have contributed to these declines, some key education indicators were already flat or falling before the pandemic. Surveyed Pacific educators point to equipment and resource constraints, alongside the pandemic and disaster events, as the primary pressures on school attendance and performance. World Bank data also suggests that teacher training and support is a problem, with the average training level of primary and secondary school teachers declining over the past decade.
The 2024 edition of the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, to be released this week, reveals that external support for Pacific education has been in protracted decline since 2012. While total development support to the education sector saw a slight increase in 2022, reaching $241 million, it remains below the pre-pandemic average of $285 million. The pandemic exacerbated the funding shortfall, with support for the education sector reaching a two-decade low of $192 million in 2020 as donors shifted their focus to health. Japan and New Zealand, two major education donors in the region, reduced their funding for education by over 45% during this period.
Heightened geopolitical tension between China and traditional partners has coincided with an increased focus on hard infrastructure, with infrastructure competition dragging budgets away from areas such as education and health.
The decline in real support for the education sector is even more pronounced in the context of the increase of addition development support the region has seen over the past half decade. Since 2020 education support has made up less than 5% of development finance flows to the Pacific, half the share it accounted for over the 2008–19 period.
While aid donors rarely flag reasoning for declining support to a sector, shifting priorities offer a likely explanation. Heightened geopolitical tension between China and traditional partners has coincided with an increased focus on hard infrastructure, with infrastructure competition dragging budgets away from areas such as education and health.
Crucially, this reprioritisation of development financing away from education has not led to increased spending by Pacific governments. Instead, per capita government spending on education has fallen across the region. In 2022, all but two Pacific governments showed inflation-adjusted per capita education spending lower than a decade earlier.
The most significant drop occurred in Vanuatu, where World Bank data shows per-person spending on education has nearly halved since the early 2010s. The exceptions to this trend are the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, both of which, under Compacts of Free Association with the United States, have earmarked education sector support.
These faltering education indicators coincide with significant demographic shifts in the region. The Pacific is home to about 12 million people, more than half of whom are under the age of 23. Years of high population growth have created a “youth bulge” that will soon enter the workforce. This trend is particularly pronounced in Melanesian states, where population growth rates exceed 2% (nearly double the global average) and over a third of the population is under the age of 14. These are also the countries making the least progress on education outcomes.
The statistical effect – and risks – of these trends are already showing. Available data suggests the share of Pacific youth not in education, employment, or training (NEETs) has increased in five Pacific countries over the past decade. The most severe case is seen in Vanuatu, where the share of NEET youths has almost doubled from 24% in 2009 to 47% in 2020. Numerous studies have shown a strong link between increased youth unemployment, lack of opportunity, and a higher likelihood of social and political instability.
Education, alongside health, form the cornerstone of development. Without swift and decisive action, the Pacific risks leaving a generation behind – one that holds the potential to drive the region's future growth and development or threaten its social stability. Competing priorities are impacting the responses of the region’s international partners and Pacific governments haven’t filled the gaps. Both need to do better.
