Oecd covid survey eag indd

Upper secondary general education
Countries with national measures prioritising all or some 
teachers’ vaccination
Countries and economies where teachers follow the same 
vaccination schedule as the general population, or where 
teachers’ vaccination schedule has not yet been defined
Number 
List of countries and 
economies
Number 
List of countries and 
economies
18
Austria, Chile, Colombia,
Czech Republic, Estonia, 
France, Germany, Hungary, 
Japan, Korea, Latvia, 
Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, 
Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, 
Turkey
12
Belgium, Costa Rica, 
Denmark, England (United 
Kingdom), Finland, Ireland, 
Luxembourg, Netherlands, 
New Zealand, Norway, 
Russian Federation, Sweden
Note: 
In Brazil, Canada and Switzerland, there were variations between regions regarding the prioritisation of teachers for 
vaccination. In Israel, teachers were originally prioritised for vaccination in the first quarter of 2021, but this ended up being 
unnecessary due to the speed of vaccine rollout.
Source: 
OECD/UIS/UNESCO/UNICEF/WB (2021
[1]
).

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28
© OECD 2021
5
Financing education during the pandemic
About two-thirds of OECD and partner countries increased their 
education budget in response to the pandemic
Public expenditure enables governments to serve a 
wide range of purposes, including providing education 
and health care and maintaining public order and 
safety. Decisions concerning budget allocations to 
different sectors depend on countries’ priorities and 
the options for private provision of these services. 
Education is one area in which all governments 
intervene to fund or direct the provision of services. 
As there is no guarantee that markets will provide 
equal access to education, government funding 
of educational services is necessary to ensure that 
education is not beyond the reach of disadvantaged 
families.
Policy choices or external shocks, such as 
demographic changes or economic crises, can 
influence the allocation of public funds across sectors. 
The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted education at an 
unprecedented scale. Maintaining learning continuity 
amidst school closures and teacher shortages,
as well as ensuring schools reopen safely, all require 
additional financial resources beyond those merely 
budgeted for prior to the pandemic. As the sanitary 
crisis evolved into an economic and social crisis, 
governments have had to take difficult decisions 
regarding the allocation of funds across sectors.
So far, education seems to have maintained its priority 
in national budgets. The results of the Special Survey 
on COVID-19 show that, during 2020, about
two-thirds of OECD and partner countries increased 
the budget devoted to education in response to 
the pandemic, with the remaining third operating at 
constant budget. This result is generally similar across 
all levels of education, although a slightly lower share 
of countries reported increasing the public budget on 
pre-primary and tertiary education as governments 
focused on compulsory education initially. While 
decisions on increasing or maintaining budgets 
stable were generally applied to all education levels 
consistently within countries, some took concrete 
decisions to support certain levels of education over 
others. For example, additional education budget was 
provided only to pre-primary education in Ireland in 
an effort to support working families as the economy 
reopened post-confinement. In contrast, tertiary 
education was the only level to receive additional 
public funds in Hungary and Korea while in Denmark, 
tertiary education was the only level where decisions 
on funding were not left to the discretion of schools or 
districts.
Public education budgets continued to rise in 2021. 
At least 75% of countries increased the financial 
resources directed to educational institutions in primary, 
secondary and tertiary education compared to 2020 
levels. The increase was most striking for tertiary 
education: while 63% of countries reported increasing 
public budgets to tertiary education in 2020, 80% 
did in 2021. In contrast, the share of countries 
reporting increasing the public budget allocated at 
pre-primary level remained generally stable across 
both years (Figure 9). Most countries increased their 

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© OECD 2021 
29
The State of Global Education: 18 Months into the Pandemic
How additional funding was spent varied greatly across countries
Across primary and secondary levels of education, 
the compensation of teachers is the largest driver 
of cost, accounting on average for around 70% 
of current expenditure on primary, secondary and 
post-secondary non tertiary education across 
OECD countries. Various factors influence the cost of 
teachers’ salaries, such as the number of teachers, their 
salaries, class size, statutory teaching time and student 
instruction time, all of which have been impacted by 
the COVID-19 pandemic. While students across the 
world traded in physical classroom teaching for more 
independent study and learning at home during school 
closures, statutory instruction and teaching times have 
remained generally stable over 2020/21 compared 
to the 2019/20 academic year. At lower secondary 
level, more than 85% of countries reported that student 
instruction time and teaching time has remained 
the same throughout the pandemic. Instruction time 
increased only in Austria and Israel, while teaching 
time increased in Austria and Lithuania. In Austria, two 
extra hours per week were added to primary and 
upper secondary schedules and schools were free to 
use these hours either to reduce class size or to set up 
additional remedial classes. In Israel, students were 
provided remedial instruction hours during the summer 
holiday months. Only in Mexico did actual instruction 
time decrease during the pandemic over the 2020/21 
school year at pre-primary, primary and lower 
secondary levels.
public budgets over two consecutive years, but this 
is not the case for all countries. For example, Austria, 
Canada, the Czech Republic and Ireland kept the 
public education budget to primary education in 2020 
constant, but increased it over 2021. In some cases, 
as in Ireland, the increase in 2021 also covered the 
additional expenses incurred by educational institutions 
in 2020. The opposite pattern is observed in the 
Slovak Republic, where public education budgets to 
primary education increased in 2020 but remained 
constant in 2021. 
In most cases, local governments received additional 
subsidies or allocations from the central government 
based on the number of students or classes. For 
example, in Poland, the general educational subsidy 
was based on the number of teachers. In Sweden, 
under the so-called “School billion” (Skolmiljarden 
plan), municipalities received additional state funding 
distributed proportionally based on the number of 
children and young people aged 6-19.
While no country reported decreasing public funding 
to education in 2020 nor in 2021, budget cuts to 
education tend to lag the emergence of crises. 
Between 2008 and 2009, despite a slowdown of 
the economy in all OECD countries following the 
global financial crisis, public spending on education 
continued to rise. It was not until 2010 that education 
budgets started to decrease in about a third of
OECD countries following austerity measures and 
budget cuts (OECD, 2013
[18]
). 
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Pre-primary
Primary
Lower secondary
Upper secondary
Tertiary
2020
2021
%
Figure 9•
Share of countries reporting an increase to the education budget in response to the COVID-19 
pandemic, by education level (2020 and 2021)
Source: 
OECD/UIS/UNESCO/UNICEF/WB (2021
[1]
).

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30
© OECD 2021
The State of Global Education: 18 Months into the Pandemic
Similarly, distance learning and hybrid strategies have 
not resulted in any change in class size across most 
countries, although many countries have implemented 
measures to reduce the number of students physically 
present on school premises and in a classroom. Class 
sizes at lower secondary and primary levels have 
decreased only in Austria, Canada, Chile and Spain, 
with the majority of the remaining countries reporting 
no changes (Figure 10). In Denmark and Turkey, class 
sizes decreased only at pre primary level, whereas 
class size decreased only at upper secondary level in 
Ireland (vocational programmes only) and Portugal. 
Countries were more likely to report an increase in the 
number of teachers to cover for teachers’ absences or 
vulnerability to COVID-19 infection, ensure adequate 
support and remedial strategies to students, and 
reduce class sizes. At lower secondary level, about 
30% of countries reported increasing the number 
of teachers, and 37% reported doing so at primary 
level over the 2020/21 academic year (Figure 10). 
For example, in Portugal, higher funding to support 
teachers in providing extra hours for educational and 
tutorial support under the Learning and Consolidation 
Recovery Plan resulted in 3 300 new teacher hires 
in 2020. In Spain, the decrease in class size was 
accompanied by the recruitment of 30 000 new 
teachers, leading to 21 000 more classes over 
the 2020/21 school year. In Belgium (the French 
Community), additional capacity to hire extra teachers 
for the 2020/21 academic year was provided to 
schools with a relatively low socio-economic index 
to support the larger outreach activities towards 
disadvantaged students that had not returned to 
school. However, the additional staff hired did not 
always meet the regular qualifications expected of 
teachers. For example, in Luxembourg, temporary hires 
in primary schools were not certified teachers and the 
usual required inception period for substitute teachers 
was dropped due to the urgency of the crisis. 
Few countries reported increasing teachers’ actual 
salaries in 2020/21 to account for the additional 
workload incurred during the COVID-19 crisis, with 
only Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia reporting doing so. 
In Latvia and Slovenia, teachers were compensated 
financially for the use of their own resources when 
working from home. In addition, teachers in Latvia also 
received additional allowances to provide individual 
counselling to vulnerable students (professional, 
psychological and academic). In contrast, 85% of 
countries reported no changes in teachers’ actual 
salaries. However, while salaries may not have 
changed, teachers may have received additional 
payment for overtime work, as in Austria, or seen their 
salary decrease if they refused or were not able to 
teach remotely during school closure, as in
the Slovak Republic.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Actual teachers’ salary (including bonuses)
Class size
Students instruction time
Number of teachers in schools
Teachers teaching hours
Decreases
Increases
No change
Schools/districts/the most local level of governance could decide at their own discretion
Share of countries (%)
AUT,
LTU
AUT, 
ISR
LTU, LVA, 
SVN
MEX
AUT, CAN, 
CHL, ESP
BEL,CAN,ESP,EST,
PRT,SVN,TUR
Figure 10•
Changes in the allocation of public funds during the 2020/21 academic school year