Decentralization in Education

in the „Transition Countries”

Péter Radó
Budapest, 28/05/2008.
 Decentralization in Education
1. The meaning of decentralization
– The narrow (management) approach
– The broader (service provision) approach
2. The rationale for decentralization
3. The direction of change in educational governance
and management systems
– Public administration systems
– Education systems
4. The regional landscape
– Governance and management
– Education service providers
5. The typical obstacles to further decentralization
 The meaning of decentralization in education

Two approaches to decentralization:

 The public administration approach: the distribution of
decision-making competencies among the levels and
actors of management of education (e.g.: director of
schools = lowest level administration agent)
 The service delivery approach: the division of labor
between public administration agents and educational
service delivery institutions with professional,
organizational and financial autonomy. (e.g.: director
of schools = the manager of school- based decision-
making)
 The public administration approach to
decentralization
 Decentralization:
– The locus of decision-making: devolution of decision-
making competencies to lower (regional, local,
school) levels of management
– The actors of decision-making: involvement of non-
administrative actors into decision-making (roles:
regulation, decision-making, consultation)
 Decentralization versus deconcentration
 The changing role of central governance: from
administrative management to strategic steering of
processes in the system + problem solving oriented
policy-making
 The local level: focusing on local accountability relations
Local accountability relations in public services
The education service approach to decentralization
 Underlying assumptions:
– Only the self-development efforts of the schools can improve the
effectiveness of education – this requires empowerment based
policies.
– Key competences are emphasized (not subject knowledge) – the
whole school is in the center of development and not individual
teachers (organizational competences of teachers are more and
more in the emphasized)
– As goals are changing in education the required teacher
competences are changing, too – professional development of
teachers becomes part of school based HRM regimes
 Consequences:
– Organizational, professional and financial autonomy of the
schools is the prerequisite of organizational learning and
improvement
– Whole schools are to be held accountable (not individual
teachers)
A combined view on the design of decentralization

Approaches and The strands of decentralization

goals
Management Financing Curriculum Quality Professional
evaluation services

Decentralization
of management
(Strengthening local
accountability
relationships) Roles, functions and capacities at national, regional, self-government
and school levels
Decentralization
of education
(Strengthening the
capacity of service
providers to
improve quality)
 The rationale for decentralization in education

 Growing scale and complexity (LLL)

 Heterogeneity of the clientele (expansion of secondary
education, inclusion)
 Implications of school based quality assurance
 Scarcity of public resources
 Problems in the flow of information (subsidiarity)
 Connecting education with other services (inherent
versus instrumental goals)
 The political agenda (democratization and openness)
 The direction of change: management
 From centralized to Centralized

decentralized
 From separated to
Separated Integrated
integrated
 From controlled to liberated
(deregulation) Decentralized

→ The transfer of the ownership of schools to local/regional

self-governments
→ Empowering the clients (parents and students) of
educational services
→ Fiscal decentralization: from direct allocation of
resources to schools to indirect allocation (combining
bottom-up and top-down financial planning
 The direction of change: education
The systemic conditions of organizational learning and
professional accountability
 The regional landscape
 Public administration:
– Early nineties: decentralization in most CEE countries,
recentralization in the former Yugoslav countries, no changes in
Romania and Bulgaria
– After the turn of the century: slow „stop and go” decentralization
in the SEE region (financing in Bulgaria, ownership in Croatia,
management in Macedonia), decentralization in the CEE
countries that were lacking behind (Slovakia)
 Education
– Strong school autonomy in the Baltic countries, Poland, Czech
Rep., Hungary and Slovenia
– Weak school autonomy in Slovakia, Romania
– Lack of school autonomy in Bulgaria and in all former Yugoslav
countries
Typical obstacles to decentralization in education in
the CEE-SEE region
 Dependence on the central distribution of resources, the
overall overwhelming role of states
 Weak and not sustainable political commitment
 Fear of loosing control in national government agencies
 Weak strategic planning capacities at the national level
 Weak financial and legal accountability mechanisms,
corruption
 Weak management capacities at regional and local levels
 Growing efficiency problems in education → resistance to
take them over
 Lacking performance management instruments, lack of
professional support services in education
 Weak management capacities in schools