School funding and resourcing policies: meeting the needs of disadvantaged pupils in France, Poland, UK (England), China, New Zealand, Singapore

There has been growing interest in the ways in which governments fund school-based education. In this paper we focus on six countries – China, France, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, and the UK (England) – and examine first, the approaches used by national governments to distribute funds/resources to schools, and second, the funding/resourcing approaches used to meet the needs of pupils deemed to be disadvantaged. As regards the distribution of funds/resources to schools, the countries in our sample fall into three main categories: (1) funds/resources are predominantly from central government, and are then distributed directly to schools; (2) funds are predominantly from central government and are then distributed to local government, which distributes funding to schools; and (3) funds/resources derive from both central and sub-national levels, with central funding/resources being distributed to local levels, and then to schools. Turning to pupils deemed to be disadvantaged, the groups targeted vary between countries, ranging from pupils from low-income groups to those who are the children of migrant workers living in urban areas. The funding /resourcing approaches adopted also differ, particularly whether financial resources or teachers are deployed. We conclude that there is a case to be made for focusing on the deployment of human resources, especially teachers, as well as the delegation of resources to provide a more comprehensive account of how resources are distributed to meet the needs of children deemed to be disadvantaged.