School Education Financing in the Context of Decentralization: Cases of Ukraine

Abstract

The article explores the issues of school education financing in the context of decentralization in Ukraine. School education in Ukraine is funded from different sources. About a third of the total education budget consists of the education subvention for teachers' salaries, which is an inter-budget transfer from the state budget to local budgets. For the purpose of our research, we selected a network of schools in the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine and its financing for the period of 2014-2021. This region is typical, plain, and without significant geographical features (unlike, for example, areas with mountainous or inaccessible areas). To identify the framework of financing school education in Ukraine within the decentralization process, we utilized methods of empirical analysis of statistical indicators, as well simulation to assess the relationship between a number of indicators such as the number of students in the school, class size and the average costs of education per student using educational subvention. The purpose is to determine opportunities to increase the efficiency of budget expenditures on education. Our analysis of the use of educational subvention funds by the different types of local budgets shows that the schools financed from city budgets use these funds with the most efficiency. The schools funded from regional budgets and district budgets use the funds with the least efficiency. Our research is very valuable for improving theoretical and empirical aspects of the calculation of the projected amount of the educational subvention, as well as for the optimization of the school network.