Financing Policies for Inclusive Education Systems: Resourcing Levers to Reduce Disparity in Education

This report provides an analysis and findings relating to inclusive education systems emerging from the Financing Policies for Inclusive Education Systems (FPIES) project (2016–2018). FPIES is co-funded by the Agency and the European Commission's Erasmus+ Key Action 3 'Forward-Looking Cooperation Projects' framework.

The FPIES project aims to systematically examine different approaches to educational financing and identify effective funding policy tools that work towards reducing disparity in education.

The analysis presented in the report examines fundamental topics that connect funding mechanisms for inclusive education systems to four resourcing issues. These issues frame the quality of inclusive education and its cost-effectiveness within important topics or policy dimensions to be considered in implementing effective, high-quality and cost-effective inclusive education policies. These issues are:

• Preventing costly and inequitable exclusionary strategies
• Providing incentives for a school-development approach that supports schools' social responsibility towards inclusive education
• Ensuring innovative and flexible learning environments through capacity-building
• Developing transparent and accountable systems for inclusive education.

This Synthesis Report is the basis for the development of a Policy Guidance Framework.