FINANCING

Up until the year 2002, pre-schools and schools of general education were financed from the municipal budgets on a scale that varied from one municipality to the next. School salary levels, however, were established by the central Government.

The year 2002 saw an introduction of a new system of financing general education schools which is based on a per capita (pupil basket) model (whereby money follows the pupil).

Pupil basket funds are allocated to municipalities by central government as targeted grants. Each year the Parliament establishes the basic allocations for pupil education per capita, and the total amount of pupil baskets in the school budget depends on the number of pupils at a school concerned.

The funds of pupil baskets are used for implementation of the education plan approved by the Minister of Education and Science, i.e. teaching and administrative staff, social pedagogue and librarian, teacher in-service training, textbooks and other teaching aids. Non-teaching staff, operational resources and capital assets (movables and immovables) remain within municipal/local education budgets.

Each school receives from the state budget about two-thirds of all funds (educational funds), and the remaining third (operational funds and capital assets) comes from the founder, normally the municipality.

This methodology has been applied to general education schools, vocational schools offering general education, pre-primary preparatory groups and pedagogical-psychological services. Expectations are that this pattern will prove to be more financially efficient and also will help improve the quality of education.

Vocational schools and advanced vocational schools are financed by the state (central government) budget, with the budget of each individual institution administered by its head who is responsible to the central authorities.

Higher education institutions, though financed by the state budget, enjoy considerable autonomy in relation to their courses and activity, and their resources are managed in accordance with their statutes.

ICT equipment and software is provided for SEN in two ways. The first way is based on centralized funding by the government, in which computer teaching aids for SNE are being developed, accumulated and disseminated to local authorities, or directly to schools, by national Centre of Information Technologies of Education(www.ipc.lt/english.htm). In this way the teaching aids are allocated mostly to special schools. These aids reach mainstream schools, if the schools and their teachers are active in the developing of inclusion. The second way is as follows: special schools and mainstream schools are financed by central government directly, or via local authority on the basis of the number of pupils with SEN and the severity of the disabilities. Local authorities delegate budgets directly to schools, and then the schools decide how to use their annual funding.