Funding of school education in the Flemish Community of Belgium

This chapter is about the funding of school education in the Flemish Community of Belgium. It presents the level of resources available for the school sector and the main principles of school funding. It also analyses the structure of the school education budget and provides a detailed description of its three main components: school operating grants, staffing and infrastructure. It examines how the Flemish approach to school funding supports freedom of choice and school autonomy while aiming to provide equal opportunities to schools in responding to the needs of different student groups. The chapter also reviews the availability of information necessary to evaluate the impact of school funding and examines the distribution of funding across levels and types of education, giving particular attention to the differential resourcing of educational programmes in the secondary school sector.