León, J. y Mesinas, J. (2023). Revisión del gasto público regional en educación básica. Hacia una más eficiente asignación de recursos para la mejora del desempeño educativo. Informe final. Lima: CIES.

In nominal terms, in 2021 annual public spending per student in Regular Basic Education was 6.4 times that observed in 2000 and 3.6 times in real terms. These fiscal efforts for investment in human capital still show low figures compared to those of OECD countries and even of peer economies in the region, such as Chile, Colombia or Mexico. This expenditure is very unequal within the national territory, with Moquegua being the region in which the state spends the most, for example, in primary school it spends 142% more per student than in Ucayali; and 50% more than the national average. This study conducts a review of spending on basic education executed by the Regional Governments and UGELs in the 2018-2021 period, in order to know in more detail how it is given and what is the performance of spending; and to identify mechanisms to move towards an increasingly effective and efficient regional spending with better educational results.