Governments and schools
In some countries the government charges parents for sending their children to primary school. This is to cover the cost of the teacher's salaries, the school buildings, and any equipment in the school. They may charge because they cannot afford to provide free schooling. However, if governments did not have to spend so much of their money on other things, such as repaying old debts, they would have more money for education.
Increasingly the only way many governments of poorer countries have been able to pay their old debt repayments is to spend less money on areas such as education and health. Governments are often forced to do this by the two organisations that controlled the debt repayments, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Today many countries are still paying more in debt repayments than they spend on primary education. This obviously has the worst impact on the poorest people, who will not be able to pay a fee for their children to go to school.