Many advanced economies with strong education systems offer public funding to independent schools

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

30 October, 2025

HAMILTON, ON – Public funding for independent schools is an international norm, according to a new Cardus report, Educational Pluralism in International Context: A Look at Seventeen Countries. The report profiles the ways many middle-to-high income democratic countries have adopted educational pluralism, a system in which governments fund and regulate education, but don’t necessarily deliver it.

“So many countries have adopted educational pluralism that it makes the five Canadian provinces which deny such funding, like Ontario and the Atlantic provinces, global outliers,” says Joanna DeJong VanHof, education program director at Cardus. “In fact, advanced economies with strongly performing schools, like Australia, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, all offer per-student funding for independent schools that’s equal or almost equal (90%) to what public schools get. This means all the western Canadian provinces, and Quebec, are much more in line with international norms.”

The top-line findings of Educational Pluralism in International Context are:

• Countries can provide significant scope for pluralist education while also maintaining a commitment to academic quality for all students.
• Most countries studied have policies to support accessibility, especially for underprivileged communities.
• Each country studied has some accountability structure in place for independent schools.

As Cardus has shown previously, robust educational pluralism has three key pillars: availability, accessibility, and accountability. Availability refers to the presence of schooling options within a given geographical area. Accessibility refers to the ability of students from various socioeconomic backgrounds to enrol in these schools, typically thanks to public funding. Accountability refers to the ways that governments hold schools to a standard of quality for the education they provide.

“Independent education continues to grow globally and it is widely accommodated through educational pluralism,” says DeJong VanHof. “These international norms reflect international human rights conventions, which emphasize the right of families to choose the type of education that reflects their values and needs. We need to be aware of these norms and continue to explore how they can be applied in Canada.”

Educational Pluralism in International Context: A Look at Seventeen Countries is freely available on the Cardus website.

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