ODA Spending

How much ODA does South Korea allocate to education?

South Korea spent 8% of its ODA on education in 2023 making it the 9^th largest DAC donor to education in absolute terms and 11^th largest in relative terms.

How is South Korean educational ODA changing?

South Korea’s relative funding for education has been declining since 2017, mainly due to the prioritization of funding for global health. However, 2022 saw a marginal increase in funding for ODA and increased slightly in absolute terms in 2023.

How does South Korea allocate educational ODA?

Bilateral Spending

In 2023, South Korea channeled 87% of its ODA to education bilaterally. This includes 6% of education ODA channeled as earmarked funding through multilaterals, which declined by half between 2022 and 2023.

Multilateral Spending and Commitments

Multilateral ODA to education accounted for 13% of South Korea’s education ODA, far below the typical DAC donor but nearly a two-fold increase from 2022. South Korea joined GPE in 2014 and has made repeated commitments to global education initiatives.

The table below summarizes South Korea’s more recent commitments to multilaterals working on education. Some of these commitments are considered core funding to multilaterals while others will be earmarked funding through multilaterals.

Funding and Policy Outlook

What is the current government's outlook on educational ODA?

South Korea considers education a key sector through which it can support partner countries in achieving the SDGs.

Education is one of the priorities of South Korea’s 204 Annual Implementation Plan. KOICA’s Education Mid-term Strategy 2021-2025 prioritizes building educational capacity and access in partner countries.

The current strategy outlines three strategic objectives which are linked to the targets of SDG 4: “Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all:”

• Quality education and learning achievement;
• Digital education to develop future capabilities; and
• Vocational and higher education to foster talents.

South Korea hosted the 2015 World Education Forum in Incheon, South Korea, where stakeholders identified key elements of the Education 2030: Framework for Action, which laid out a vision for global education policy for the next 15 years and the financing required to achieve the Education 2030 agenda.

Gender equality, linked to girls’ education, has been a cross-cutting theme within South Korea’s development policy in the past. While girls’ health and education have historically been featured prominently in South Korea’s development portfolio, President Yoon Suk Yeol has demonstrated no interest in furthering gender equality. Girls’ education programming could suffer as a result.

Key bodies