Item 3.2 Improvement of expenditure data on education

Transcription

1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate F: Social statistics Unit F-5: Education, health and social protection Doc 2016-ETS-02 Item 3.2 Improvement of expenditure data on education Meeting of the Education and Training Statistics Working Group Luxembourg, 2-3 June 2016 BECH Building Room QUETELET 1

2 Executive summary The community of education statistics (and especially UIS-UNESCO, OECD and Eurostat) has been considering the development and the improvement of the methodology on education expenditure for a long time (see for instance the various reports presented by Eurostat in the past 1 ). However, other priorities (e.g. the revision of the ISCED classification, the improvement of learning mobility methodology) have emerged and significant progresses on this topic were not achieved in the recent years. Although its purpose is not to develop a satellite account on education, the project Improvement of expenditure data on education is a first step in reaching the long term objective of a better alignment between the UOE and the National Account methodologies and the possible development of a satellite account on education. The objective of this document is to present the objectives and the tasks of the project, to present the preliminary results of the UOE assessment regarding the timeliness and the freshness of the UOE finance data as well as to inform Member States about the pilot data collection on UOE finance core indicators that will take place in the course of the project. The ETS Working Group is invited to take note of: The objectives and the tasks of the project; The planned pilot data collection of a limited set of UOE finance data for volunteer Member States; The future reconciliation exercise that will take place in six volunteer Member States Participants of the ETS Working Group are invited to express their views and discuss: The overall objectives and tasks of the project; The possible ways to improve the timeliness of the current UOE Finance data collection process; Their willingness to participate in the pilot data collection of a limited set of UOE finance data; The timing and the timetable of the pilot data collection; The content of the pilot data collection. 1 UOE sub group on education finance and the joint UIS-ESTAT seminar, Luxembourg, September 2003, item 4 of the agenda and Eurostat, Meeting of the Task Force on a multi-annual approach for assessment and improvement of the quality of the UOE data collection, May

3 1 Background of the project 1.1 Context Beyond the level of total private and public expenditure on education, the importance of efficient investment in education and training and cost sharing between stakeholders (government, employers and individuals) is high on the European Commission and Council s agendas. This was already reflected in the Communication on Rethinking Education and in the central role assigned to education and training as a key driver for growth and competitiveness in the Annual Growth Survey, including the reference to the key role of investments in human capital for tackling and preventing unemployment and preparing a job-rich recovery. The demand for statistics and analyses on investment in education and training has increased over the last years and is likely to further increase because of the economic crisis. Indeed, in one of its recent reports 2, the European Commission recalled that High quality education and training are essential if Europe is to make a speedy recovery from the most severe economic and financial crisis for 50 years. ( ) However, as a result of the financial and economic crisis, public finances in all Member States are under great pressure. Governments are seeking ways to reduce budget deficits and manage public debt without dismantling the foundations of sustainable growth. While no direct link can be established between the level of funding of the education systems and student's learning outcomes, there is a general understanding that investing in high quality education and training should continue to be a priority. Such priority to invest in future growth has been regularly recalled by the European Council and the European Commission which repeatedly urge Member States to prioritise expenditure on education and training despite their fiscal consolidation programmes. Within this context, having timely and consistent data on expenditure on education at EU level is an obvious prerequisite 3. At present, two main sources of information within the ESS provide data about expenditure on education: data on total general government expenditure broken down by their main socio-economic function as classified according to the Classification of the Functions of Government (henceforth COFOG data) and the UOE (UNESCO-OECD-Eurostat) data collection. Despite showing strong links, the methodologies of these two sources of data on education expenditure are not fully compatible. Moreover, these statistical sources are not enough developed to track all financial resources for education and document their end use in detail. 1.2 Objectives of the project The objectives of the project are to improve the expenditure data on education, with the general objective of making available more timely data, with a better quality through methodological changes to already existing data collection at EU level (being understood here as the UOE data collection). The objectives of the project are in line with the recent conclusions of the Indicator Expert Group (IEG) on education investment regarding data sources which recommended 4 : To publish more data, to have them more timely (i.e. reducing the present nearly 3- year time lag) and with sufficient/logical breakdowns. In particular, regarding more 2 European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, Funding of Education in Europe : The Impact of the Economic Crisis. Eurydice Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. 3 UNESCO also outlined that Work needs to continue to improve coverage, accuracy and timeliness of finance data. It would be useful to consider developing or strengthening existing national education accounts to accurately reflect the respective shares of governments, donors and households in total education financing in Technical Advisory Group Proposal: Thematic Indicators to Monitor the Post-2015 Education Agenda World Education Forum Indicators Expert Group on education investment Final report June 2015 chapter 3 Data sources 1

4 timely data, it was recommended that a core set of variables should be identified to be provided with a shorter time lag. To check the implementation of the UOE finance methodology since In this respect, Member States have to document deviations from the UOE methodology (i.e., in addition to the data files, each Member State has to provide a quality report documenting the degree of compliance to the UOE methodology). This requirement is in the 'UOE' regulation (n 912, Sept. 2013). The quality reports would be a source of information for checking quality of UOE expenditure data with a view to revising the methodology. Indeed, it is acknowledged by the main stakeholders dealing with education statistics that data on expenditure does not have the relevant timeliness. Moreover, the lack of strong comparability of data on education expenditure with other sources (e.g. National Accounts data) and possibly between countries (as a systematic, in-depth and comprehensive assessment of the quality of UOE education expenditure has not been performed for a long time) call for the methodological improvement of the expenditure data on education. 1.3 Tasks of the project The project Improvement of expenditure data on education started in January 2016 and will run 26 months (until March 2018). The project is organised in five tasks Task 1: Assessing the quality of the existing 'UOE' expenditure data The assessment of the quality of UOE expenditure data is based on the national quality reports (as available in the ESS-MH) and on the UOE questionnaires validated by the OECD and Eurostat for the last three reference years (i.e. UOE data collection 2013, 2014 and 2015 covering reference years 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively). The assessment follows the definition of quality as defined by article 12 of the Regulation on European Statistics 5 and as detailed in the ESS Standard for Quality Reports Structure (ESQRS) Task 2: Organising a pilot data collection in view of producing fresher/more up to date and timely core indicators The objective of this task is to select particularly relevant and robust core indicators and to collect the necessary data relating to the financial year 2015, by the end of 2016, from all volunteer Member States and EEA countries. The final purpose is to produce fresher, i.e. more up to date, and timely core indicators. The selection of core indicators is based on the assessment (Task 1); on the main stakeholders needs and on the discussions during the Education and Training Working Group (June 2-3, 2016) Task 3: Inventory and documentation of the main methodological differences between the 'UOE' expenditure data and other finance data on education The objective of this task is to make the inventory of the main conceptual differences between the 'UOE' methodology for the collection of data on public and private expenditure, and the national accounts methodology in recording government and household expenditure (ESA2010). This consists in analysing and comparing the two methodologies by matching 5 Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics (OJ L 87/164, ). 2

5 concepts and comparing definitions between the two methodologies, comparing the subcategories and their definitions and preparing a reconciliation theoretical procedure between UOE data and National Account (NA) data Task 4: Quantifying the main methodological differences between the 'UOE' expenditure data and other finance data on education The objective of this task is to quantify, as far as possible, the methodological differences between the 'UOE' expenditure data and the national accounts data on education in view of a reconciliation of the two different sources, and to summarise them in a reconciliation table. The purpose of the reconciliation procedure is to foster the transparency and the comparability between the two data collections (UOE and National Accounts) by defining the methodology of transition between the UOE methodology and the National Account (ESA2010) methodology in a systematic way. The framework of a reconciliation table between UOE and NA data will be tested during six study visits in volunteer Member States Task 5: Comprehensive assessment of expenditure data on education, including recommendations to improve or adapt the existing underlying methodology The objective of this task is to provide a complete report on the assessment of expenditure data on education, including recommendations to improve or adapt the existing underlying methodology on the basis of the outcomes of each tasks of the project. Section 2 of the document focuses on some preliminary results of the UOE assessment (Task 1) regarding the timeliness and the freshness of the data as well as their availability while section 3 details the main stakeholders needs and the preparation of the pilot data collection on core indicators (Task 2). 2 UOE assessment timeliness and freshness of the UOE finance data It has been acknowledged for a long time by various stakeholders (e.g. DG Education and Culture, Eurostat, Member States themselves and more recently the Indicator Expert Group (IEG) on education investment) that the length of time between data availability and the event or phenomenon they describe (i.e. timeliness) is too long for UOE data on expenditure to meet users needs Timeliness national workflow In national quality reports, information about timeliness of the data is either detailed by type of variables or not detailed at all (in such case, it is assumed that a single timetable applies for all UOE data). In Member States that explicitely detail the timetable of expenditure data, timeliness vary according to the sector of the educational institutions (Austria, Hungary), the source of data e.g. central government budget and external data from municipalities, institutions in charge of pensions, etc. (Belgium, Poland) and the ISCED levels (Poland, Sweden). In these Member States (e.g. in Belgium and Austria), the national workflow is longer because data on specific sectors (e.g. private institutions) or specific sources (e.g. data from municipalities) are available later than budget data. Among Member States that explicitely describe the timetable of the finance data collection, the total length of the data collection process (data collection and post collection phases excluding the dissemination phase) varies from 3 months (Lithuania) to 21 months (Hungary and Portugal). Apart from Lithuania; Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and France show the shortest data collection period 3

6 for finance data: the overall data collection process lasts ten (Sweden and the Netherlands) or seven months (Poland and France). At the other end of the spectrum, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Finland (13 months), Hungary and Portugal (21 months) spend more than one year to collect finance data. The following chart plots the duration of the data collection process against the month when finance data is available. Figure 1: UOE data collection Finance: Time span of the data collection and month when data is available Time span of the data collection process -number of months BE HU PT CY CZ LI FI SI AT RO IE NO DK NL PL SE FR ES BG LT Timeliness International workflow T+1 Month when data is available T+2 Finance Finance? In addition to the national workflow, the length of the international workflow should also be considered in the timeliness of the UOE finance data collection. The following table specifies the date when UOE14 and UOE15 returns were received and validated by Eurostat. UOE finance questionnaires should be completed and sent by national data providers by the 30 November of the year. For UOE14, half of the Member States complied with the deadline (providing the UOE finance questionnaire either before the deadline or in the first week of December) and the remaining Member States (except four) provided the questionnaire before the end of December. The relatively long validation process for UOE14 might be explained by the implementation of the ISCED 2011 and some resources shortages in international organisations. Regarding UOE15, half of the Member States complied with the deadline (i.e. providing the UOE finance questionnaire either before the deadline or in the first week of December) while three Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria and Spain) provided the questionnaire before the end of December. Among the remaining Member States, four of them (Estonia, Luxembourg, Portugal and the United Kingdom) provided the UOE15 questionnaire with a significant additional delay compared to the UOE14. 4

7 Table 2: UOE14 and UOE15 finance submission dates Freshness of the data Freshness of the UOE finance data is a major concern for many stakeholders and especially DG EAC who had to use the COFOG data for its last edition of the Education and Training monitor 2015 (ETM2015). Indeed, DG EAC used the COFOG and National Account data because the UOE finance data were not available when the ETM was pepared. DG EAC used COFOG and National Accounts data to provide the following indicators: Table Public expenditure on education as a share of GDP, as a share of total public expenditure ; Figure Public expenditure on education by type of transaction (compensation of employees; intermediate consumption, gross capital formation and other expenditure); Figure Real growth of public expenditure on education by level; Figure Household expenditure as share of public expenditure on education. 6 Situation as of 11/05/2016 5

8 Some of these indicators are available through the UOE data collection but were not used in particular because of their lack of freshness compared to the COFOG and National Accounts data. However, UOE data can claim to have an added value compared to the COFOG and National Accounts data: The UOE Finance data provide detailed ISCED breakdowns that better support the analysis e.g. ISCED2011 is already implemented; early childhood education (ISCED 0) is separated from primary education (ISCED 1), etc. The UOE Finance data allow computing indicator about expenditure per student as it collects information on the number of students (ISCED 0 to 8) with coverage adjusted to statistics on educational finance by type of institution for each ISCED level; The UOE Finance data better cover private expenditure on education despite the fact that the reliability of some of these data may be questionned; The COFOG methodology still use the ISCED97 classification. In addition to their freshness, it should also be emphasised that COFOG data has added value as they allow comparing education expenditure with expenditure in other areas (e.g. health) within a coherent methodological framework. 2.3 Problem statement It follows from the assessment of the UOE finance data that some Member States would possibly be able to provide some UOE finance data with a better timeliness. Indeed, their national workflow, as described in their national quality report, would allow them to deliver some UOE finance data for reference year t by the end of year t+1. In order to assess the feasibility to provide the main stakeholders with fresher/more up to date and timely UOE finance data for a limited set of indicators, the task 2 of the project aims at organising a pilot data collection. The participation in this pilot data collection is on a voluntary basis. The pilot data collection would fit the stakeholders needs in terms of usefulness and reliability of the data: core indicators would be selected on the basis of the stakeholders needs (as detailed during this meeting and further consultations) and on the basis of the ongoing qualitative assessment of the UOE finance data. Section 3 of this document provides elements regarding the potential timetable of the pilot data collection that will run during this project and a presentation of stakeholders needs regarding core indicators to be covered by this pilot data collection. It should be noted that, at this stage, several stakeholders have already been consulted (meetings and written consultation) on these issues: the European Commission i.e. DG EAC (and EACEA), DG EMPL (and CEDEFOP), DG RTD, DG ECFIN as well as OECD. Unesco will be consulted at a later stage on the project. 3 Pilot data collection on core indicators The aim of the pilot data collection is to assess if it is conceivable that a significant number of Member States provide a limited set of core indicators (based on UOE finance data) which would be at least as fresh as the COFOG data to the main stakeholders (i.e. DG EAC). The pilot data collection aims at collecting the raw data that are necessary to produce a limited set of UOE finance core indicators. 3.1 Timing and Timetable of the pilot data collection At this stage the main use of these data would be the preparation of the 2017 edition of the Education and Training Monitor (ETM2017). In order to relase the ETM2017 at the beginning 6

9 of October 2017, DG EAC need to receive the UOE finance data (core indicators) in April 2017 in order to prepare the relevant analyses during May 2017 (please see Figure 2). The timetable of the pilot data collection on UOE finance core indicators for reference year 2015 would possibly be: Sending of the questionnaire Last week of June 2016 First week of July 2016 Deadline for volunteer Member States to Last week of December 2016 return the questionnaire Validation phase January 2017 to March 2017 The rationale for testing such timing/timetable are the following: It would align the reference period of non-finance and finance UOE data. It would align the freshness of the UOE finance data with the COFOG data. The main objective of the pilot is to assess the capacity of the countries to provide the expected information. Data will only be used if a sufficient number of Member States volunteer to participate to the pilot data collection. The major issue of the consistency between the different data sources with be dealt with later in the project. 7

10 Figure 3: Timetable of the UOE data collection 8

11 3.2 Identification of users needs the general public To support the selection of core indicators, this section presents some information taken from the analysis of the number of downloads of expenditure data from Eurostat website (Eurobase) over the period. Over the period, 6982 datasets were available to users on the Eurostat website, of which 214 datasets provide information on education (3 % of the datasets) and 19 present UOE finance data. Three education datasets have been downloaded more than times during the three years: Education indicators by NUTS 2 regions ( downloads), Number of students by level of education, orientation, sex and NUTS 2 regions ( downloads) and Expenditure on education as % of GDP or public expenditure ( downloads). The dataset Expenditure on education at current price shows downloads over the same period. At the other end of the spectrum, ten UOE finance datasets show a number of downloads below for the entire period. Four of these datasets belongs to the Bologna tables that have been removed from the data tree in 2015 and six of them are new datasets that have been implemented after 2012 in the Eurobase data tree (i.e. following the revision of the ISCED classification). Table 4: UOE Finance datasets, number of downloads, Prioritisation exercise The stakeholders which have been consulted were asked to identify the core UOE finance indicators that are needed for their own purpose through a prioritisation exercise. On the basis of the UOE finance indicators that are currently disseminated on Eurobase, they were asked to: Give a Priority ranking to each indicator: Low, Medium, High; Specify which breakdowns of which variables are of particular interest for their own purpose (especially when the indicator is given a High priority); Provide any additional comment and add any specific indicators they would need in the current list. So far, DG EAC, DG ECFIN, DG EMPL, EACEA, CEDEFOP and OECD provided their reply to this exercise. Eleven datasets are considered as high priority by at least 9

12 one of the respondent to the prioritisation exercise. Stakeholders only identified those indicators that have a high priority. When no specific breakdown were given a priority, it was considered that only the agregate of the variable was considered as priority. The following preliminary conclusions could be drawn up from the prioritisation exercise: 1. Fourteen existing datasets/ indicators and three additional indicators were selected as High priority; 2. Stakeholders wish computed indicators (e.g. Total public expenditure on education by education level and programme orientation - as % of GDP) as well as absolute amounts of some aggregates (e.g. Total educational expenditure by education level, programme orientation and type of source); 3. Most of the data that would be needed are available from the FIN1_SOUCE questionnaire while the use of the FIN2_NATURE would be rather limited (three indicators); 4. The number of rows to be collected in a pilot data collection that would cover all indicators with a High priority would be relatively limited: o The following rows of the FIN1_SOURCE would be needed: N20, G1, G4, G10a, G13, G12, G20, G5, G5c, H20, H5, E20, C8, C9, R8, C20-R20-L20, E5, F5, P5, P20 and F20; o The following rows of the FIN2_NATURE would be needed: A20 and X20 as well as X1, X5, X6, X13, Y1, Y5, Y6, Y13, Z1, Z5, Z6, Z13, X14, X15, Y14, Z14, Y15, Z15, X20, Y20, Z20. N20 Combined Public, Private And International Expenditure - Total: Expenditure on education G1 Government sources - Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Direct G4 expenditure for educational institutions - Public institutions Government sources - Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Total: Direct expenditure for private institutions G10a Government sources - Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Transfers and payments for education to the non-educational private sector - Scholarships and other grants to households and students - of G10: Public grants attributable for tuition fees to educational institutions G13 G12 G20 G5 G5c Government sources - Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Transfers and payments for education to the non-educational private sector - Transfers and payments to other non-educational private entities Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Transfers and payments for education to the non-educational private sector - Total: Subsidies to households and students Government sources - Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Total: General government expenditure for education Government sources - Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Direct expenditure for educational institutions - Total: Direct expenditure for all educational institutions Government sources - Expenditure of all levels consolidated - Direct expenditure for educational institutions - of G5: Direct expenditure designated for R&D activities H20 Private sources - Household expenditure - Total: Household expenditure on education H5 Private sources - Household expenditure - Payments to educational institutions - Total: Payments to all educational institutions (net) E20 Expenditure of other non-educational private entities - Total: Expenditure of other non-educational private entities for education E5 Private sources - Expenditure of other non-educational private entities - 10

13 Payments to educational institutions - Total: Payments to all educational institutions F5 International sources - Direct expenditure for educational institutions - Total: Direct expenditure for educational institutions C20- R20- L20 C8- R8 C9 P5 A20 P20 F20 X1- Y1- Z1 X5- Y5- Z5 X6- Y6- Z6 X13- Y13- Z13 X14- Y14- Z14 X15- Y15- Z15 X20- Y20- Z20 Government sources - Central government (/Regional/Local) expenditure - Total: Central (/Regional/Local) government expenditure for education Government sources Central/Regional government expenditure - Intergovernmental transfers for education - Net transfers to local governments Government sources - Central government expenditure - Intergovernmental transfers for education - Total: Intergovernmental transfers Private sources - Total private expenditure - Payments to educational institutions - Total: Payments to all educational institutions Expenditure in public and private institutions (from all sources) - Total: Expenditure in public and private institutions - Total: Expenditure in public and private institutions Private sources - Total private expenditure - Total: Private expenditure on education International sources - Total: International expenditure on education Expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions (from all sources) - Current expenditure - Teaching staff Expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions (from all sources) - Current expenditure - Non-teaching staff Expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions (from all sources) - Current expenditure - Total: Staff compensation Expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions (from all sources) - Current expenditure - Current expenditure other than for staff compensation Expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions (from all sources) - Current expenditure - Total: Current expenditure Expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions (from all sources) - Capital expenditure Expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions (from all sources) - Total expenditure in public(/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions - Total: Expenditure in public (/government dependent private/ independent private) institutions 5. Numerous but not all ISCED levels available in the current UOE questionnaire would need to be covered in the pilot data collection, the following ISCED breakdowns are especially demanded: o ISCED level 3, ISCED level 4, ISCED level 1-8, ISCED levels 1-4, and ISCED level 5-8 are the most demanded levels; o The breakdown general vocational at ISCED level 3 and 4 is mainly requested by CEDEFOP and DG EMPL for ISCED levels 3 and 4 as well as for all other relevant levels by DG EMPL; 11

14 o ISCED 0-8 excluding Early Childhood Educational Development is especially requested by DG EAC that also requires having data about ISCED level 0 (all programmes), ISCED level 1 (all programmes), ISCED level 2 (all programmes). Table 5 presents the datasets that are given a high priority by the main stakeholders. It links the datasets with the rows of the UOE finance questionnaires (FIN1_SOURCE and FIN2_NATURE) as different datasets may use similar rows of the UOE finance questionnaires when computing the indicators. The table also details the ISCED levels that were considered as particularly relevant by stakeholders. 12

15 Table 5: Prioritisation exercise - Results 13