Basic and secondary education may be the best tool for improving poor people’s health. But international aid for education is declining, writes Knud Vilby in the new Global Health Minders Emerging Issue Brief on Education for Health.

Global aid to education has been declining seriously since 2010 and is now 10 % below the 2010-level. Basic education is one of the pillars in efforts to improve health especially in poor and vulnerable populations. Stagnation in efforts to reach “Education for all” will make it more difficult to reach global health targets.

The brief underlines that:

• Evidence shows that better education improves health.
• Poor quality teaching and lack of trained teachers are growing problems.
• Low-income countries are dependent on international aid in providing primary education.
• MDG 2 called for education for all by 2015 but there still are 57 million children and 69 million adolescents not attending school.