Financing of education in Croatia: the role of local governments

Abstract

This paper examines assignment of responsibilities in education sector and revenue sources for financing education in Croatia. The paper shows that providing and financing of education is highly centralized at the national government level Education expenses are one of most important items in the government budget Cities and municipalities are responsible for almost all of sub-national spending on education. The counties' responsibilities in education sector are these that are transfered from municipalities The paper shows that there are some conflicting responsibility because financing of education is shared between national and sub-national governments Furthermore, the paper illustrate that in the case of Croatia greater decentralization in providing and financing of education would improve efficiency within schools by encouraging greater competition among them. Besides creation of private schools, there is a possibility of organization of localy-run schools (municipality-run schools) in pre-primary, primary and secondary education This means a need to relax central government authority in education system, and to increase decentralization through private and local schools.