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Increasingly, countries around the world are reforming their traditional ‘special educational needs’ funding models, many of which contradict the overarching principles of inclusive education as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability (UNCRPD). There is growing awareness across countries that the way education systems are financed directly shapes the extent to which schools can be inclusive. Spiralling costs have also influenced governments who have begun calling for ‘cost control’ and greater transparency and accountability in how resources are distributed and monies are spent. In Ireland, calls for a more equitable resource model for students with disabilities in mainstream education resulted in the introduction of a new system of funding which removed the need for diagnosis to receive supports. However, since ratification of the UNCRPD in 2018, Ireland's system of special education is being considered for full reform with the possibility of moving to a system of inclusive education and the removal of special schools and classes. This raises the question: can two separate funding streams, one for general education and one for special education ever exist in an inclusive system? Having one funding model for all students, although the logical choice, is the source of much concern among parents and disability advocates, many of whom fear it will lead to children with disabilities ‘falling through the cracks’ and used by government as a mechanism to reduce spending overall.

This chapter explores two policies guiding the education and funding related to students with and without disabilities in the United States. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 serves as the nation's primary legislation outlining policies, procedures and funding for the education of students with disabilities. Thus, IDEA 2004 is integral in understanding inclusion throughout the United States. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 is regarded as the primary educational legislation concerned with funding to provide all students with access to a well-rounded education. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the laws in relation to inclusion and funding for teacher professional development (PD) and argues in support of funding specifically aimed at the PD of highly effective classroom teachers. Preparing, recruiting and retaining high quality teacher candidates must be a top priority in PK-12 education. In the current political climate, there is a need to examine how to use available resources in a time of shrinking budgets, teacher shortages and increasing equity gaps.

This chapter will examine budgets from the most recent five years available and make connections to issues related to funding for inclusive programming, including professional development of teachers. While ESSA does not guide PD of teachers, it guides the funding for said programmes. Through budget evaluations and analysis of the President's rationale for decreasing funding under Title II of ESSA, we demonstrate that the current President is decreasing funds for PD, recruitment, preparation and more on the basis that Title I funding of ESSA covers these activities. With a new election set to take place next year, this chapter explores how the budgets have impacted funding for inclusive programming while looking to the future and its impact on the preparation and development of teachers.

This chapter reports on how funding is used in general education schools around the world to facilitate inclusive education. While research has established the importance of inclusive education and investigated the diverse funding models employed in different global regions, this narrative review reports on how funding is operationalized at the school and classroom level to achieve the goals of inclusive education. Results indicate funding is commonly allocated to in-service professional learning programmes, resource acquisition, and purposefully tailored supplementary programmes for students with specific educational needs. This chapter outlines recommendations for researchers and policymakers in developing new ways of funding inclusive practices.

This chapter highlights aspects that are high on the agenda of the financing inclusive education debate: the need to re-think resource allocation mechanisms, the issue of empowerment, the way funding mechanisms support inclusive education, and the importance of appropriate governance and accountability mechanisms. It focuses on critical factors of financing that support the right to education, as outlined in Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) (United Nations, 2006), in a context of financial constraints and explores issues in the policy-practice gap in relation to both national- and European-level policy priorities and objectives. It draws on existing literature on modes of funding, on past research conducted by the European Agency and on the conceptual framework developed within a new European Agency study on current policy and practice in this field.

Historically, the World Bank has been the largest external financier of education in the world, committing a peak amount of just over $5 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 through both its Education Sector projects and multisector projects managed by other sectors (World Bank, 2010b). The World Bank also hosts the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI). Launched in 2002, EFA FTI is a partnership of governments, civil society organizations, and multilateral agencies such as United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Bank, which provides grant funding and technical assistance to implement the basic education components of national education strategies. By providing significant funding for education in low-income countries (LICs) through its own International Development Association (IDA) and by managing the majority of EFA FTI grant funding, the World Bank has a major impact on the direction of education development around the world.

In 2011 the Bank released a new Education Sector Strategy, Learning for All, which sets out the World Bank Education Sector's approach to education development over the coming decade. The analysis in this chapter examines the role of the EFA FTI and the growth of World Bank education operations managed outside the World Bank Education Sector, as well as their influence on Bank education lending objectives in sub-Saharan Africa. We examine trends in World Bank and EFA FTI basic education financing in sub-Saharan African countries that have joined the EFA FTI partnership to compare these two sources of financing for primary education and analyze the extent to which the World Bank is substituting its primary education lending with grants from the EFA FTI. We also assess the results frameworks of 10 multisector operations managed by noneducation sectors (Economic Management and Poverty Reduction; Urban Development; Rural Sector; Population, Health, and Nutrition; and Social Protection) to ascertain the extent to which they include education objectives and indicators. The chapter focuses its research around two questions:1.Is there evidence that financing from the EFA FTI is substituting World Bank financing for education in sub-Saharan Africa?2.Are World Bank multisector operations well designed to achieve education objectives in sub-Saharan Africa?

The research finds that the EFA FTI has almost certainly impacted the demand for IDA financing for basic education development. The comparison of IDA and EFA FTI primary education financing shows country-level substitution is occurring in a number of sub-Saharan African countries, with at least 13 out of 18 EFA FTI grant recipients in sub-Saharan Africa receiving a declining share of IDA financing for primary education since joining the EFA FTI.

Second, multisector operations now account for one-third of Bank education lending and have increased to comprise half of all new education commitments in sub-Saharan Africa. The research finds that multisector operations with education components are not as effective or accountable for education outcomes as those managed by the Education Sector, unless they are explicitly linked to national education plans. Given the disconnect between Education Sector managed education lending, and financing for education managed by other Bank sectors, it is unclear how the latter will be guided by the Bank's Education Sector Strategy, which will only apply to half of all Bank education lending for sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, there is no guarantee that both EFA FTI funding and noneducation sector managed lending will be measured against World Bank education strategy standards, and yet the Education Sector Strategy 2020 does little to address these challenges.

It is not rare to read positive comments about North American higher education from higher education stakeholders in Europe, particularly policy-makers and institutional managers. The aspects of the system which are most often praised are the degree of institutional competition and the benefits this brings in terms of institutional flexibility, responsiveness, and adaptability. Moreover, those voices also enhance the resourcefulness of North American higher education institutions in finding alternative sources of funding to cope with the steady decline in public funding. In recent decades European higher education has felt the impact of the aforementioned trends and the effects have been not altogether dissimilar from the ones identified in North American higher education. Moreover, the growing integration of European higher education systems has also contributed to enhance some convergence with some of the trends identified in the American case. In this paper, we reflect on the impact of the increasing marketization of funding and governance mechanisms on the European higher education landscape and compare it with the impact of those trends discussed in the papers by Irwin Feller and George W. Breslauer.

Funding, first from foundations and later also from government agencies, has been a factor in shaping the development of education for library (and information) science in the U.S. for more than 80 years. Educational programs experienced substantial investments in three periods: (1) from the Carnegie Corporation in the 1920s and 1930s; (2) from the U.S. Office of Education in the 1960s and 1970s; and (3) from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the first decade of the 21st century. This chapter documents the impacts of the first two and argues for the need to analyze the impact of the third. Other, more modest, investments from both foundations and government agencies have had less lasting impact. This chapter identifies the major sources of funding and projects funded, assesses the level and type of impact, and concludes with implications for the future. The focus is on funding for research, development, and resource enhancement in library (and information) science education, not research conducted by library and information science (LIS) faculty on other topics (e.g., as funded by the OCLC/ALISE library and information science research grant program) (Connaway, 2005).

This chapter will address four key areas related to resourcing inclusive education. Consideration will be given first to an international perspective on models of funding, reviewing direct or student-based approaches, and decentralized versus local organization of funding. The relationships between funding and implementation of inclusive education will then be explored, looking at ways of measuring these using indicators or protocols. Third, continuous improvement, planning, and accountability will be reviewed for their role in setting priorities, targets, and benchmarking progress while addressing competing resource needs. Finally, approaches to building capacity to support inclusive practice through a range of approaches will be proffered.

This chapter describes the nature of higher education funding and student support in the Republic of Ireland. Ireland represents an interesting case-study because of the abolition of student fees in the mid-1990s and the way in which the current crisis in higher education (HE) funding has prompted debate about the appropriate way to fund the sector. The chapter begins by providing a brief outline of the structure of Irish HE and the funding regime before examining HE admissions processes and the kinds of supports available to students. The chapter concludes by looking at trends in participation and the current debate about the future direction of funding.

In the era of the knowledge economy, universities are expected to contribute to the economic development of their countries. Therefore, their research agendas must be relevant to the local context and geared, though not uncritically, to the national educational agenda. To do this diligently requires research autonomy. However, due to the low government investment in research on the African continent, universities have had to rely on other sources of funding, which usually come with strings attached. Our study investigates the case of Ghana, in particular, the University of Ghana, the leading research university in the country. We drew on resource dependence theory, which suggests that, despite external pressures on universities, they can enhance their autonomy through the implementation of strategic measures. Primarily, we analyzed documents such as research reports, journal articles and speeches in the light of Clark’s (1998) model of the “entrepreneurial university,” which, if adapted with care and in a localized form in Ghana, may contribute to the research autonomy of its universities. We found that, although research autonomy in Ghanaian universities is limited due to their over-reliance on external donor funding, it is likely to be strengthened if the government of Ghana follows through on plans to increase research funding and universities continue with measures to diversify their funding sources.