The FPIES project, funded by the European Commission, aimed to enhance financing policies for inclusive education systems across several countries from 2016 to 2018. It emphasized the importance of local stakeholder involvement in reducing disparities in education and established a framework focusing on key issues such as equitable resource allocation and the promotion of innovative learning environments. Final outputs included country reports, a policy guidance framework, and a synthesis report that collectively guide policy reform towards effective inclusive education.

1. Financing Policies for Inclusive
Education Systems
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

2. FPIES – key information
● Erasmus+ (EACEA-33-2014)
– Support for policy reform
– Prospective initiatives – Forward-Looking Cooperation Project
● Running from: 1/1/2016 – 31/12/2018
● Co-ordinator: European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education
● Country partners: Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia
● Evaluator: Universitat Ramon Llull

3. ● The peer learning methodology has the potential to facilitate self-review and
experience exchange to support long-term policy development and implementation
● Six Country Study Visits: involved a wide range of relevant local stakeholders from
ministry, municipality and school level and ministry-level visitors from three of the
other five partner countries
● Ministry seminar in Athens: an exploitation activity with another Agency member
country
Peer learning methodology

4. The importance of involving local stakeholders
● Involving local stakeholders from different levels of the system in the Country Study
Visits gave an insight into the issues of financing at each level
● Inputs and first-hand reflections from different stakeholders have enriched and
improved the process
● The final project outputs have taken into account a range of different perspectives and
views on the financing system in each country

5. INCLUSIVE EDUCATION SYSTEMS

6. Components of inclusive education systems
● Legislation underpinned by a fundamental commitment to ensuring every learner’s
right to inclusive and equitable educational opportunities
● Policy providing a clear vision for and conceptualisation of inclusive education as an
approach for improving the educational opportunities of all learners, emphasising the
shared responsibility of all educators, leaders and decision-makers in enacting the
vision
● Operational structures and processes guided by the principles of equity,
effectiveness, efficiency and raising achievements for all system stakeholders

7. Position on Inclusive Education Systems
The Agency member countries’ shared ultimate vision for inclusive education systems is
that ‘all learners of any age are provided with meaningful, high-quality educational
opportunities in their local community, alongside their friends and peers’.
This vision is the focal point of all Agency work.
Source: Agency Position on Inclusive Education Systems

8. FINANCING AS A BARRIER TO OR A
SUPPORT FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
SYSTEMS

9. Framework of resource allocation mechanisms
of systems for inclusive education
Spending
related to
Support at
regional level
Special
schools
Mainstream
settings
Individual
capacity-
building on
inclusive
education
Support at
school level
Health and
welfare
Accessibility
of buildings
and ancillary
services
Source: Financing of Inclusive Education: Mapping Country Systems for Inclusive Education

10. Financing of inclusive education systems
framed by four resourcing issues
1. Preventing costly and inequitable exclusionary strategies
2. Providing incentives for a school-development approach that supports schools’ social
responsibility towards inclusive education
3. Ensuring innovative and flexible learning environments through capacity-building
4. Developing transparent and accountable systems for inclusive education

11. Each of these four issues …
● … can be understood as a major facilitating factor underpinning the development of
financing policies that promote quality inclusive education systems that can reduce
disparity in education.
● When these issues are not adequately addressed, major barriers to cost-effective and
efficient systems arise.

12. Unpacking the issues
● Resourcing issues are vital topics or policy dimensions to be considered in
implementing effective, high-quality and cost-effective inclusive education policies
● Each issue relates to critical resourcing factors that are pivotal for determining
equitable, efficient and cost-effective inclusive education
● Each critical resourcing factor builds upon key resourcing drivers that are a means of
considering, understanding and then implementing critical resourcing factors
Source: Financing of Inclusive Education: Mapping Country Systems for Inclusive Education

13. Key issue 1: Preventing costly and inequitable
exclusionary strategies
Main critical resourcing factors Key drivers
A political commitment to the right to
education for all learners
• financial commitment towards inclusive education
• commitment to excellence for all
• investment in developing support measures for learners
Embedding inclusive education in local
contexts within a community-based
approach
• embedding inclusive education as a key task and area of
responsibility at all decision-making levels
• promoting schools’ social responsibility towards inclusive
education
Promoting a school-development
approach
• moving from a needs-based approach to a whole-school
approach
• resourcing mechanisms that encourage the development of
inclusive learning communities

14. Key issue 2: Promoting a school-development
approach to inclusive education
Main critical resourcing factors Key drivers
Providing incentives for a supportive
learning environment
• financial support for schools and learners at risk of
underachievement
• resourcing mechanisms that foster learning networks
Promoting school autonomy • flexible use of public funding
• organisational flexibility
Embedding inclusive education in
supportive quality assurance
mechanisms at school level
• support for distributed leadership
• an adequate combination of means for supportive
innovative learning environments

15. Key issue 3: Ensuring innovative and flexible
learning environments
Main critical resourcing factors Key drivers
Enabling capacity-building strategies • empower local communities, schools or learners
Enabling special settings to act as a
resource for mainstream settings
• incentives for special settings to act as resource centres
• embedding inclusive education issues in pre- and in-
service training of specialists working in special settings
Embedding inclusive education in
professional development
• embedding inclusive education in teacher training
opportunities
• promoting leadership capabilities in developing
inclusive schools
• including parents in training opportunities

16. Key issue 4: Transparent and accountable
systems for inclusive education
Main critical resourcing factors Key drivers
Network governance strategies
promoting integrated systems for
inclusive education
• school networks
• local networks
• an interdisciplinary framework
• an inter-ministerial framework
Moving from procedural control
mechanisms to accountable systems for
inclusive education
• connecting the funding with evidence-based resource planning
• developing monitoring mechanisms that go beyond administrative
compliance
• mapping funding data against the goals of inclusive education
• embedding inclusive education in reporting and dissemination
mechanisms
Embedding inclusive education policies
in a quality assurance system
• reworking existing evaluation procedures and mechanisms for
inclusive education issues in a quality assurance system
• developing a clear inclusive education quality assurance framework

17. FINANCING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
SYSTEMS

18. Financing policy imperatives
● Accountability: understanding what schools are achieving with their additional
resources, while taking into account the relationship between expenditure,
educational processes and learning outcomes
● Monitoring: to review and ensure ‘fit for purpose’ processes for allocating funds to
ensure that resources reach the learners for whom they are intended and are having
the desired effects
● Flexibility: providing a degree of decentralisation within inclusive education systems
allowing school leaders and teachers to access a comprehensive system of support

19. Achieving a balance
General funding:
Resources allocated to schools to
provide general education for all
learners
Type of intervention:
Flexible teaching and learning
opportunities provided in
mainstream classrooms
Throughput funding:
Resources allocated to schools
for groups of learners at risk of
failure who may need additional
support
Type of intervention:
Adapted teaching and intensified
support provided based on
identification of needs at
school level
Input
funding:
Resources
allocated to
individual learners in
need of intensive
additional support
Type of intervention:
Specialised and individualised
teaching and learning most
often linked to a long-term
individual education plan
and/or external support
Source: Financing of Inclusive Education: Mapping Country Systems for Inclusive Education

20. An effective financing policy framework
Requires a policy vision focused upon:
● Ensuring the development of high-quality and cost-effective inclusive education
policies that reduce disparity in education and work towards all learners’ educational
and social inclusion within a lifelong perspective
Will be based upon three policy principles:
● Efficiency, in terms of focusing on the improvement of the cost-benefit relationships
within the overall system
● Effectiveness, in terms of considering educational outcomes for learners as well as
other stakeholders in the system
● Equity, in terms of ensuring equitable educational opportunities through respect for
diversity and the elimination of discrimination

21. Financing policy inter-connected to and as a
critical lever for all other operational
processes of inclusive education systems
Financing policy
vision, issues, goals
and objectives
Learning and
teaching
environments
Continua of
mainstream
support services
Capacity-building
for individuals,
organisations and
the system
Governance and
cross-sectoral
collaboration
Monitoring,
quality assurance
and accountability
Identification of
individual
learning
support needs

22. FPIES main project final outputs
Six Country Reports, available at: www.european-agency.org/projects/fpies/partners
Project synthesis report: Resourcing Levers to Reduce Disparity in Education
Final Summary Report
Policy Guidance Framework, including a Self-Review Tool translated into all Agency
member country languages
Final Evaluation Report, prepared by the external evaluators at Universitat Ramon Llull
(link to be added)

23. Further information
For further information about the FPIES project, visit:
www.european-agency.org/projects/fpies
Or contact the Agency Secretariat:
secretariat@european-agency.org