are rare. Some countries have only public schools, others only private, while most have a mixture. The meaning of ‘private’ varies a great deal. In its broadest sense, it encompasses all non-state-run schools, some of which may actually be partially or even fully funded by the state. Governmental obligation to make education available is in practice frequently, albeit erroneously, associated with its provision of education. In quite a few countries, governments provide subsidies to diverse range of schools without operating any. The assumption behind the term ‘private’ is that all such schools are profit-making while many are not. The term is applied to formal and non-formal education, religious and secular schools, minority and indigenous schools, as well as schools for children with special needs. Some private schools are supplementing state-run schools and are established where they do not provide education in a particular minority language or religion, or do not accommodate children with physical or learning disabilities. Others are established as an alternative to state-provided education. The practice of states varies with regard to subsidies for non-public schools. Indeed, there is a great deal of difference in the very classification of schools as public and/or state schools and private schools. The classification developed by UNESCO, which is globally used in education statistics, divides schools by the criterion of their management, by the state or private, and ‘government-aided schools are considered private if they are privately managed.’ 10 Differently, English courts have 10 20 UNESCO – 1998 World Education Report, Paris, 1999, p. 118. Right to Education Primers No. 3 classified schools into state (i.e. public) and private by the criterion of the source of funding. If a school’s funding comes out of public revenue, it is defined as a state school regardless of how it is managed.11 Resource allocation is generally seen as a political decision and un-elected courts neither can nor should usurp the prerogatives of elected parliamentarians. Human rights correctives lie at the boundary between political and legal processes. Education is commonly financed out of general taxation, which in some countries places the mobilization of funding for education beyond the remit of domestic courts. A typical example is the United States, where economic and social rights are not recognized and, furthermore, the Supreme Court has declared taxation as well as economic and social policy to lie beyond its purview. It has held that raising and disbursing tax constitutes a legislative function beyond the remit of courts. The case dealt with the financing of education at the district level out of property tax, which had created a great deal of difference between rich and poor districts. The Court has refrained from questioning this system, although funding depended ‘on the relative wealth of the political subdivisions in which citizens live.’ Rather, it favoured the ‘freedom to devote more money to the education of one’s children,’ preferring local autonomy over increased powers for the central government:‘other systems of financing, which place more of the financial responsibility in the hands of the 11 National Union of Teachers v. Governing Body of St.Mary’s Church of England Aided School, [1995] ICR 317, EAT [1997] IRLR 242 (CA); R. v. Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Trust, ex parte T [1995] ELR 350; EA 1996, ss 482 (1) (b), (3); 483.