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Effects of funding and management misalignment in Serbian primary education . Predrag Lažetić , Centre for Education Policy Mihajlo Babin , Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration . Current system. Deconcentration and partial decentralization
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Effects of funding and management misalignment in Serbian primary education Predrag Lažetić, Centre for Education Policy MihajloBabin, Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration
Current system • Deconcentration and partial decentralization • Combination of centralised input based system of funding and school based class formation and employment policy • Key instrument – number of classes • Lack of incentives for optimization at the local and school level • Systemic incentives for maximization of the authority gains at municipal and school level
Context – decline of number of students Average annual pupil decline rate (%) in the period between 2000-01 and 2006-07 Growth 0 – 1 % Decline 0 – 0,99 % Decline 1 – 1,99 % Decline 2 – 2,99 % Decline 3 – 3,99% Correlation between Annual pupil decline rate and the rate of decline of number of classes: 0,62 Decline more than 4 %
In the same time – staff number and investment increase significantly Comparing January 2007 and January 2010, there are: • 1100 teachers (FTE) more • 895 non-teachers (FTE) more • 7 new schools • 10,7% increase of investment in primary education in real terms (excluding inflation of price of work and coefficients)
Systemic inconsistencies lead to unplanned investments Methodology developed to distinguish types and fiscal impact of unplanned investments: 3 types: • Investment in increased teaching effort per class • Investment into increased non-teaching effort per class • Investment in smaller class size
Conclusions • Principals and regional school administrations have tendency to retain the number of classes and teachers regardless of the student decline • This creates unplanned investment into smaller class size • Average class size on the national level however remains relatively stable, however the variations in class size among municipalities increases due to the discretionary decisions of principals and RSA
Policy alternatives The systemic inconsistencies require systemic solutions aimed at alignment of funding and management competences This can be achieved by: • Alignment at the central level (recentralization) • Alignment at school level (transfer of funds to schools) • Alignment at the municipal level (transfer of funds to municipalities)
Alignment of funding and management at the municipal level • Introduction of the allocation mechanism – per capita funding formula from central to municipal level • Introduction of the cost-sharing model between municipalities and central authorities • This approach does not include systemic incentives for unjustified decrease of the class size • This system stimulates municipalities to rationalize the school network