Official development assistance (ODA): DfE spending statement
Published 16 June 2025
Applies to England
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DfE funding in relation to ODA
ODA is defined as resource flows to developing countries and multilateral organisations, which are provided by official agencies, like the UK 바카라 사이트, or their executive agencies.
DfE calculates its ODA spending using the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) definitions of ODA.
This principally relates to education spend on asylum seeker applicant children for the first 12 months after their asylum application is lodged, who are either eligible for early years funding or are of primary and secondary school age.
When producing its ODA spending figure, DfE estimates how much of the general revenue funding relates to asylum seeker applicant children who are attending a school or an early years setting.
In broad terms, the DfE ODA estimate is derived by taking data on the number of ODA children eligible for education support, which comes from the Home Office, and multiplying these by estimates of the unit costs for each phase of education.
DfE funding policy for asylum seeking children
DfE does not have a separate funding stream relating to the education of asylum seeker or other ODA-eligible children.
It is our policy that such children who attend a school or early years setting in England attract funding in the same way as all other children. For schools, this funding is allocated through the schools national funding formula and other grants like the pupil premium. As DfE does not have a fixed budget for ODA, the department바카라 사이트™s ODA spending depends heavily on how many ODA-eligible children are in the country, which will vary from year to year.
This approach ensures that asylum seeker children attract both the basic per pupil funding amount as other children, including funding relating to their needs and characteristics, like:
- pupils eligible for free school meals
- pupils with English as an additional language
- socio-economic deprivation.
It is for individual schools to decide how to use their funding to best meet the needs of all their pupils.
More information
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has included estimates for the DfE바카라 사이트™s contribution to UK ODA in its statistics on international development since 2015.
There바카라 사이트™s separate information, published by the FCDO about the official development assistance strategy since 2015.