Budgetary Oversight and Accountability in Ukraine: The Case of General Secondary Education Sergii Slukhai

Current State and Problems Growing transparency on the national level Strict fiscal control over local budgets exerted by the national authorities Low accountability of local governments concerning fiscal issues

What to control in education? Legality of money spending versus Efficiency of money usage (cost-efficiency and meeting the local demands for educational services)

Correlation between total expenditures per student and school size in Sokal District, Lviv oblast

Factors influencing accountability Legal prerequisites (quite good) Institutions (obsolete) Motivation to control (mostly not significant) Public access to information (almost absent)

What kind of policy do we need?

National level state bodies: Concentrating on efficiency and long-term sound fiscal management rather than on formal budgetary oversight Introducing of formula-based money allocation mechanism instead of the existing non- transparent and subjective one Creating conditions for inter-school competition through the voucher system Decentralizing school administration

Educational bodies of county level A partner rather a than a commander in relation to educational units Regulation of the local market of educational services Enhancing school cooperation through clustering or school districts

Schools: Separate budgets (not budget estimates) for each school Legalization of off-budget funding Flexibility in budget execution New role of school councils concerning fiscal issues

How to make it work? Changing the legislation Re-training educational managers Involving the local NGOs into local educational policy making Providing better public access to information

Why is it worth doing? Quality education Switching from routine of command administration to creative work More stability and a non-biased attitude to funding educational institutions