Senegal has about 12.4 million inhabitants of whom 42 percent live in urban areas and the population growth rate is 2.6 percent. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is produced by four main sectors of the economy as follows: - agriculture (19.8%); industry (23.5%); manufacturing (16.5%), and services (56.8 %), with respectively 1.9 %, 4.0%, 2.2%, and 5.4 % growth rates as estimated by World Bank (2008). The Statistics department of Senegal has also put the GDP to be 5407.7 billion francs CFA in 2007. The average annual growth of the economy is estimated at about 4 percent with a GDP per capita of US$900 (2006 estimate) and inflation rate of about 2.2 percent.

French is the official language, which is also the main language of instruction in schools. In principle and by constitutional provision, Senegal guarantees equal access to education for all children, particularly primary education. Also, constitutionally, education is compulsory and free up to the age of 16. However, in practice, due to limited state resources the law is not fully enforced. The importance of education for all and resources allocated to the education sector have been well highlighted in the 2000 Dakar World Education Forum and the National documents especially PRSP, PDEF (Programme de Développement de l’éducation et de la formation), the regions and local development plans. The resource mobilisation into the educational sector has been said to be critical in achieving the MDG of education for all by 2015.

In 1990 at the World Education for All Conference in Jomtien, Thailand, the World leaders focus on education for all with ambitious and wide-reaching goals by 2015. The Dakar Forum in 2000 reaffirmed the goals set by 2015 of education for all (EFA), stressing on direct approach to address the real problems and deficits as noted in attaining the goals of EFA. While the 164 countries in the 2000 Dakar meeting stated the great progress has been made, they strongly urged for increased resources in order to achieve the goals of education for all by 2015. There is presumption that bigger educational expenditures and increased levels of inputs into the educational sector necessarily results to “better educational outcomes.” Many take the public expenditure as the key policy instrument for attaining educational outcomes. At the primary level in the supply of schooling, the public expenditure far exceeds that of non- governmental provision including private expenditures (Brossard and Foko,2007; Krueger, 2003; Saavedra, 2002).