Spending on social sectors
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Resources are scarce and there are competing demands on the same by different sectors. Bangladesh for some years has been allocating a major share of the country's budgeted resources on education. This emphasis is there even in the proposed national budget for fiscal 2010-11. This is evident from the spending allocation (both development and non-development) of 13.2 per cent of the aggregate budgetary sources for education and related information technology sectors in the proposed budget for the forthcoming fiscal. Likewise, health sector received 6.0 per cent of the overall public expenditure under the proposed budget.
But allocations are one thing while the manner of spending them is another. The education over the years has been receiving higher and higher budgetary resources for maintaining routine services in the sector such as on meeting the needs for higher salaries of teachers and the administrative staff. It needs an assessment how much of increased allocation of resources has really been going to creation of physical or infrastructural facilities like buildings, laboratories, etc., to add to real capacities in this sector and raising of quality of education. The latter can particularly help to raise the capital: output ratio that can, in turn, ensure higher returns in the form of output on a given volume of capital investment. Then, higher allocations and spending on education, including technical one, can lead to advancement of the underlying objective behind such spending: the creation of quality human resources or even human resources in general. Resources spent on education must not be wasted by creating only generalists who can have little application in running the wheels of a modern economy. Thus, in the context of Bangladesh, the challenges are definitely not showing increased spending on education in figures or on paper only but to channel such spending in a way that human resources, befitting the needs of a modern and expanding economy, can be created.
Spending on health has been at the top of allocations for a long time. But it cannot be said that services in the publicly-run medical and healthcare system have improved significantly over the years. Therefore, it is important to go for improving efficiency in the publicly-run medical and healthcare facilities. It is not that the number of such facilities is insufficient. But it is the standard of service or care in them which falls far short of the expectation. Besides, it is also a pressing need to increase spending to create awareness among people about the preventive sides to major diseases and also about nutritional needs. Targeted spending is necessary to increase health and nutritional awareness. Programmes such as large scale distribution of nutritional supplements and advice should be introduced. The population control and related services also call for higher spending as well as the greatest care to ensure true efficiency in their operations.
Spending in the social sectors is often underestimated. The same may not immediately reflect value in the form of tangible output. Health gains or vitality of the workforce and creation of human resources are intangibles that form over periods of time and their impacts are not readily noted. But the same are critically important for making economic advances over the long run. Therefore, appropriate spending on them is justified.
But allocations are one thing while the manner of spending them is another. The education over the years has been receiving higher and higher budgetary resources for maintaining routine services in the sector such as on meeting the needs for higher salaries of teachers and the administrative staff. It needs an assessment how much of increased allocation of resources has really been going to creation of physical or infrastructural facilities like buildings, laboratories, etc., to add to real capacities in this sector and raising of quality of education. The latter can particularly help to raise the capital: output ratio that can, in turn, ensure higher returns in the form of output on a given volume of capital investment. Then, higher allocations and spending on education, including technical one, can lead to advancement of the underlying objective behind such spending: the creation of quality human resources or even human resources in general. Resources spent on education must not be wasted by creating only generalists who can have little application in running the wheels of a modern economy. Thus, in the context of Bangladesh, the challenges are definitely not showing increased spending on education in figures or on paper only but to channel such spending in a way that human resources, befitting the needs of a modern and expanding economy, can be created.
Spending on health has been at the top of allocations for a long time. But it cannot be said that services in the publicly-run medical and healthcare system have improved significantly over the years. Therefore, it is important to go for improving efficiency in the publicly-run medical and healthcare facilities. It is not that the number of such facilities is insufficient. But it is the standard of service or care in them which falls far short of the expectation. Besides, it is also a pressing need to increase spending to create awareness among people about the preventive sides to major diseases and also about nutritional needs. Targeted spending is necessary to increase health and nutritional awareness. Programmes such as large scale distribution of nutritional supplements and advice should be introduced. The population control and related services also call for higher spending as well as the greatest care to ensure true efficiency in their operations.
Spending in the social sectors is often underestimated. The same may not immediately reflect value in the form of tangible output. Health gains or vitality of the workforce and creation of human resources are intangibles that form over periods of time and their impacts are not readily noted. But the same are critically important for making economic advances over the long run. Therefore, appropriate spending on them is justified.