Public Administration in the Education Sector: Boon or Bane for Western Europe?

Abstract

Education is one of the most important services provided by public governments in almost every country worldwide. However, the most important cross-country observations about education – like the PISA report by the OECD or the TIMSS by the IEA – focus only on international benchmarks to compare the knowledge capacity of pupils. This article provides a general overview of the different forms of education providers in ten European countries. We observe the educational system in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and point out the similarities and national distinctions in the allocation mechanism for primary and secondary schools as well as universities.