Determinants of public education spending in the Turkish provinces

The effective provision of public education service delivery is very important for all countries. It is especially important for Türkiye as the country faces a possibility of getting stuck in the middle-income trap. The country spends a large sum of budgetary resources on public education. However, the determination of the resource envelope at the provincial level does not take local socio-economic and demographic dynamics into account. We analyze the determinants of public education spending at the provincial level for the period of 2008-2021. Our findings suggest that the economic composition of provinces together with the student-teacher ratio and enrollment rate influence the resource needs for education services. However, there is a discrepancy between primary and secondary education in terms of student-teacher ratio and enrollment rate as they influence the outcome in different directions.