World Bank2023-11-202023-11-202023-11-20https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/40627Free education policies have vastly increased access to schooling but, if improperly financed, can reduce quality, and exacerbate inequities in education systems. To support free education, countries in sub-Saharan Africa have introduced new alternative models of school funding. Abolition of tuition fees has been the key component of free education policies implemented in sub-Saharan African countries since the 1990s (Bashir, Lockheed, Ninan and Tan, 2018). However, abolishing fees, without replacing revenue for use by schools, leads to financing shortages that can severely impair education quality. These shortages impact the equity of education systems. Schools in wealthier neighborhoods may be better able to cope with financing shortages through informal voluntary contributions from communities and revenue mobilization from NGOs and other supporters. In poorer areas, these informal means of revenue mobilization are likely to be more difficult, leading to large disparities in per-student finance between schools. To address this, sub-Saharan African countries have introduced school grant schemes, providing discretionary finance to schools for operating costs, the purchase of materials, and improvements to learning environments. School grants provide control to schools and their communities over day-to-day expenditure, typically while maintaining control of larger cost items—such as teachers and classrooms, at district or national level. However, the effective implementation of school grant schemes entails challenges: ensuring the appropriate use of grant finance requires functional school management systems, mechanisms to keep schools committed to national goals, and oversight and audit systems to ensure the proper use of finance. These tasks could be particularly difficult for underdeveloped education systems with preexisting school funding gaps and low capacity at the school level, such as those found in sub-Saharan Africa.enCC BY-NC 3.0 IGOEDUCATION EXPENDITUREEDUCATION FINANCE REFORMFREE EDUCATION POLICYSCHOOL GRANT PROGRAMFRAGILITY AND EDUCATIONFRAGILITY CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE AND EDUCATIONBriefWorld Bank10.1596/40627