2016 Regional Meeting on School Finance
Background information
UNESCO Bangkok undertook a regional study on school finance in 2015. The study was built on UNESCO International Institute for Education Planning (IIEP) and UNICEF's data collection and analysis on school grants in Indonesia, Mongolia, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu, the World Bank's Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) in school finance and other research.
The first phase of the regional study on school finance involved Kobe University and UNESCO Bangkok, with financial support from Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), conducting three country pilot studies on school finance in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam.
During the second phase, seven more country case studies on school finance were conducted in China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, and a comprehensive regional report was prepared. Based on the research findings, practical guidelines on school finance were developed which will become a module of the Education Microplanning Toolkit in the Asia-Pacific, a practical tool to build capacities in education planning at the local level.
Experts from the Ministries of Education and Finance, universities, researchers and international development partners will gather for a two-day regional meeting to examine policies and practices of school financing in the context of decentralization in the Asia-Pacific region and to identify recommendations on strengthening the effectiveness of school finance. The feedback from the participants will contribute to finalizing nine country studies, the regional report and guidelines on school finance with aim to improve policy dialogue in countries of the region and to facilitate capacity development at a local level.
Meeting details
Title - "Ensuring Adequate, Effective and Equitable Financing in Schools"
Dates - 31 March - 01 April 2016
Location - Anantara Riverside Bangkok Resort
Participants - Education/school finance experts, including policy makers from the Ministries of Education and Finance, academics and researchers, Kobe University, UNESCO, IIEP, GEM, and other international and regional development partners.
Purpose and Objectives - The objectives of the meeting are:
1) To facilitate the sharing of experiences in school financing with regard to adequacy of resources for school financing, efficiency of school finance in terms of resource mobilization and management, and how school financing serves equity objectives in the Asia-Pacific region
2) To review findings of the country case studies, regional report and guidelines on school finance
3) To agree on common issues in school finance and to formulate recommendations for strengthening school finance policies and practices in the region
Key Documents
Meeting Presentations
Reference Documents
The Country case studies, regional synthesis report, and related material will be available on UNESCO Bangkok's National Education Systems and Policies in Asia-Pacific (NESPAP) Open Platform.
