Abstract:

The education system is a group of institutions whose primary purpose is to provide education to children and young people in educational settings. Public expenditures on education include direct expenditures on educational institutions (schools, universities and other public and private institutions) as well as education-related public subsidies and supporting educational services, provided to individual pupils and students. The paper aims to evaluate public expenditures on education, accentuating similarities and differences in European countries. The subject of the quantitative analysis are selected groups of public expenditures on education according to the Classification of the Functions of Government. These are expenditures on pre-primary and primary education, expenditures on secondary education, which include lower and upper-secondary education, and expenditures on tertiary education. The analysis focuses on the period 2013-2018 for the selected set of 28 European countries, with using hierarchical cluster analysis.
In the evaluated period, total public expenditures on education in the 28 European countries accounted for 3.7% to 6.8% GDP on average. In the European countries, a larger volume of public expenditures were allocated on lower levels of the education system (pre-primary, primary or secondary education) and a small share of expenditures on tertiary education. The results of cluster analysis of the volume and structure of public expenditures on education enabled the division of the European countries into four clusters according to their internal similarity. Countries in the first and the third cluster demonstrate similarity in the volume of public expenditures on pre-primary and primary education (1.5% to 1.6% GDP on average). Countries in the first and fourth cluster showed similarity in public expenditures on secondary education (1.3% to 1.5% GDP on average) and countries in the second and the third cluster similarity in the volume of public expenditures on tertiary education. Also, the results of cluster analysis confirmed the largest differences in the volume of public expenditures on pre-primary and primary education between the countries Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania with the lowest volume of public expenditures compared to Denmark and Sweden with the highest volume of public expenditures. The results show priorities of public educational policies and the levels of the educational system in the individual countries.

Keywords:

Education, Levels of education system, Public expenditures on education, European countries.