Higher and More Effective Spending on Education and Health There is a need to see if the South Asian country rankings in human development reflect differences in the level of public spending on education and health. This is attempted below in Table 26.4. Nepal presents an interesting case. Despite being classified as a Least Developed Country(LDC), Table 26.4: Public Spending on Education and Health as% of GDP in South Asian Countries Country Spending HDI on Spending Education on Health Sri Lanka 0.782 2.1 1.1 India 0.645 3.8 1.0 Bangladesh 0.632 2.2 0.9 it has managed to raise its HDI by Nepal 0.602 5.1 1.5 the highest level of spending an Pakistan 0.557 2.2 1.1 education at over 5 percent of the Source: World Bank, WDI. GDP and on health at 1.5 percent of GDP. Pakistan has close to the average spending level but does not do as well in the HDI. 26.2. Education The Education System The distribution of education sector public spending is given in Table 26.5 for South Asian countries. It appears that perhaps somewhat prematurely the share of colleges and universities in public education expenditure has increased in Pakistan. It stands at over 22 percent as compared to 11 percent in Nepal, 15 percent in Bangladesh and 21 percent in the more developed Sri Lanka. Therefore, there appears to be a case for increasing the shares of primary and secondary levels of education, especially if the imbalance in coverage by location and gender is to be reduced. Table 26.5: Distribution of Education Sector Spending by Government in South Asian Countries Share of Expenditure(%) Country Primary Secondary College/ University Other Total Sri Lanka 29.9 45.7 20.7 3.7 100.0 India 28.4 41.4 28.5 1.7 100.0 Bangladesh 44.6 39.1 14.7 1.6 100.0 Nepal 53.8 33.3 10.8 2.1 100.0 Pakistan 36.5 37.5 22.2 3.8 100.0 Source: World Bank, WDI. A long-term comparison is made in Table 26.6 of the evolution of public expenditure at constant prices of 2005-06 on different levels of education in Pakistan. 267