Understanding Educational Financing

These modules on educational financing evolved from a series of seminars held in the small states of the Caribbean and the Pacific. The project was set up to improve the financial understanding and budgetary skills of key educational personnel and to help bridge the gap between finance and education ministries. With greater decentralisation a common development in most countries, responsibility for planning and administering education has shifted from central ministries to district offices and, in some cases, to educational level. This autonomy underscores the challenges for other key educational personnel to acquire the skills to improve the internal efficiency of education systems and the quality of schools in a decentralised system. This publication provides overviews of the issues raised, detailed content relevant to those issues, case studies, training material and summaries. These modules should be a useful source of information for ministries, schools, community personnel and researchers and will promote a greater understanding of the scope and relevance of educational financing.