Costs and financing

The balances between the roles of the state, private sector, communities and households in education financing is under study. Recognizing that improved equity cannot be achieved without suitable financing policies,emphases includes household costs and public-private partnerships.

In recent years, an increasing number of governments have made primary education free of charge in the public sector. This measure has removed a serious barrier to primary schooling for poor households, but has raised other issues. Questions include the conditions under which the policy is sustainable, and whether it can be implemented instates with weak administrative infrastructures. Assessments are needed of the consequences of fee abolition not only for access but also for the quality of education, and judgements are needed about the priority for fee-free education at different education levels.

Moreover, in many settings official policies on fee-free education in public schools are subverted by pressures on households to pay for supplementary private tutoring, and  therefore the following themes receive priority:

• households' costs of education
• public-private partnerships
• implementation of fee-free education initiatives in primary education.