Public Expenditure Review of the Education Sector in Jamaica

Abstract

The objective of this Public Expenditure Review (PER) is to analyze the adequacy, efficiency and equity of public spending on education in Jamaica. These three aspects will be compared to national and international standards, in line with Jamaica’s educational challenges and goals. This report uses data from the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service (MOFPS), the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information (MOEYI), the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The analysis focuses on the last two years (2018 – 2019), for which spending data was provided. Longer trend analysis was impeded due to lack of additional years of data, although analysis was corroborated by other sources where possible. The PER incorporates results from national and regional assessments to provide information on education system performance. However, as Jamaica has not recently participated in any internationally benchmarked learning assessments, the PER could not include a deeper evaluation of the quality of education from an international perspective. Within the scope of the available data, the review follows the World Bank Education Global Practice guidelines, which establishes content and quality standards for PERs in the sector (World Bank Group, 2017).