Inclusion and education

CHAPTER
4
Governance
and finance

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KEY MESSAGES
Horizontal collaboration across ministries is widespread in the region.
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Most countries have inter-ministerial bodies to integrate services that promote inclusive education. In 
Lithuania, the education, health and social ministries have agreed to jointly develop measures to help children 
identified with autism or other developmental disabilities.
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Government structures need to reinforce collaboration on producing and sharing data on vulnerable learners. 
The Russian Federation reformed its needs identification system to engage multiple government services.
Vertical collaboration between central and local authorities is needed for delivering inclusion.
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Decentralization needs to be supported with funds and human resources. In Estonia, while county education 
departments usually have only a supervisory role, some counties have proactively established development 
plans and encouraged school network building.
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Some countries integrate services both horizontally and vertically. In the context of the process for relocating 
and resettling third-country asylum seekers and refugees, Croatia’s 2017–20 Action Plan for Integration 
engages representatives from ministries and agencies, NGOs and humanitarian organizations but also local 
and regional government.
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Coordinated actions on quality assurance are crucial. Romania’s education ministry, county school inspectorates 
and quality assurance agency follow different procedures and do not collaborate in assessing schools.
Governments engage non-government and international actors to varying degrees.
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Cooperation between governments and non-government actors varies by country. In Albania, NGOs were 
involved in the design and implementation of the National Action Plan for Integration of Roma and Egyptians.
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International actors can influence inclusive education. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the concept of inclusive 
education was introduced in an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe strategy that later 
became the basis for policies, laws and regulations.
Local management responsibilities must be clearly outlined to support efficient resource use.
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Decentralized governance needs clear mandates. In Slovakia, a high degree of school financial autonomy 
enables schools to promote improvement. Slovenia’s school councils have autonomy to decide annual work 
plans while taking national regulations into account.
Disability-inclusive education funding must be sustainable and promote efficient resource use.
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Special, separate education funding linked to formal decisions of social and medical services leads to strategic 
behaviour by parents, schools and local authorities seeking eligibility for resources. In the Russian Federation, 
mainstream and special schools operate in parallel, as mainstream schools do not receive additional funds to 
enrol students with special needs.
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Countries should allocate funds based on recognized needs of schools or local authorities for support 
services. In the Czech Republic, a per pupil allocation is being replaced by an amount per staff member that 
aims to take into account the cost of support measures and salary levels.
External financing has been supportive of inclusive education reforms.
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Turkey’s successful conditional cash transfer programme was scaled up in 2017 to reach Syrian and other 
refugee children, with European Commission and UNICEF support.
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The European Social Fund has supported various social cohesion reforms, including an educational 
counselling system in Estonia and a new Roma education model in Slovakia.
72
GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 2021

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Collaboration is a precondition for effective delivery of inclusive education ...........73
Horizontal collaboration between government departments takes
many forms ..........................................................................................................................................74
Social inclusion policies sometimes support inclusive education provision ....75
Vertical collaboration is needed to ensure the sustainability of inclusive 
education ...............................................................................................................................................77
Quality assurance mechanisms are relatively recent ....................................................... 7
Several governments engage non-government actors to varying degrees ......78
International organizations play a key role in inclusive education provision.....79
Countries are re-examining their mechanisms for financing inclusive
education .............................................................................................................................................80
How funds are transferred to schools, and how schools can use them,
affects equity and inclusion ........................................................................................................80
Direct funding to disadvantaged students and their families can support 
equity and inclusion .................................................................................................................. 82
External financing has been critical in prompting inclusive education
reforms ............................................................................................................................................ 83
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 83
Effective implementation of legislation and policy can be 
facilitated or hindered by the way governance and finance 
structures are organized and collaboration between the 
two occurs. Governance relates to interactions among 
actors (OECD, 2015), to roles and responsibilities across 
government levels and to capacity in local government 
and communities (European Agency, 2017). It involves 
top-down policy dynamics but also collaboration 
between government and non-government stakeholders. 
An effective balance between centralization and 
decentralization strategies (Caldwell, 2009; European 
Agency, 2017) is a key consideration within governance 
debates. Each type of strategy has advantages and 
disadvantages for specific categories of actors responsible 
and accountable for inclusive education. That is also 
the case with funding systems aimed at ensuring that 
resources are allocated equitably to schools and that all 
learners have access to education opportunities of good 
quality (European Agency, 2018).
This chapter addresses collaboration, cooperation and 
coordination in governance and financing. It first considers 
the need to break down silos in policy formulation and 
implementation and looks at how education ministries 
establish partnerships between education levels, between 
government levels, with other sectors and with non-
government stakeholders. It then examines the financing 
of services for equity and inclusion, including mechanisms 
to allocate education resources to regions, schools and 
students. It also discusses social protection programmes 
that target vulnerable groups and can affect education, 
and reviews the role of external financing.