The proportion of global education aid being committed to early childhood education - which was already well below international targets - has started to fall, according to new research which suggests that the internatonal community is starting to turn its back on the world's most vulnerable children. These findings are from the annual donor 'scorecard' produced by University of Cambridge researchers for the charity Theirworld. This tracks how much international aid is being spent on education for the critical early years, up to age five. The authors suggest the true picture could be far worse than that presented in the report, as the latest available data are from 2023, the beginning of what they describe as a new era of "cuts and conflict". Since then, 99% of United States funding for basic education has been axed by the Trump administration and Britain and Switzerland have also scaled back spending.