Azerbaijan Central Bank considers landmark six per cent spend of GDP for education

Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov 24 /corr Trend A.Akhundov/

The Azerbaijan Central Bank (ACB) is considering bringing education spending to a level of six per cent of the GDP as a landmark. Elman Rustamov chairman of the Central Bank said in Parliament during the discussion of the draft state budget for 2012 and the next three years.
"The Baker & McKenzie Company has conducted a study on the education systems of 20 of the world's leading countries recently and expenditure on education in all of them is six per cent of GDP. It is a landmark for us. Of course, it is not done in one day. We advance step by step. "Mr Rustamov said.

According to Mr Rustamov, international practice shows that 65 per cent of these expenditures go towards salaries.

"We raised the issue of increasing salaries in the education system. It is very relevant, but the expenditure should be directed to specific reforms, including the increase in salaries parallel to the increase of professional workers in this sphere, as is international practice," he said.

The state budget for 2012 provides an increase of expenditure on education to 12.6 per cent in comparison with this year, with actual performance in 2010 standing at 33.5 per cent - up to 1 575.9 million manat. The share of education expenditure in the total budgetary expenditure is 9.3 per cent, higher by 0.5 per cent compared with 2011.

The official exchange rate as of Nov 24 of 0.7865 AZN / USD.