Decentralization in Education in the Transition Countries

1
Decentralization in Education in the Transition
Countries

• Péter Radó
• Budapest, 28/05/2008.

2
Decentralization in Education

• The meaning of decentralization
• The narrow (management) approach
• The broader (service provision) approach
• The rationale for decentralization
• The direction of change in educational governance
  and management systems
• Public administration systems
• Education systems
• The regional landscape
• Governance and management
• Education service providers
• The typical obstacles to further decentralization

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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)

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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

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Local accountability relations in public services
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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)

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A combined view on the design of decentralization
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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)

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The direction of change management

• From centralized to
• decentralized
• From separated to
• integrated
• From controlled to liberated
• (deregulation)
• ? 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

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The direction of change educationThe systemic
conditions of organizational learning and
professional accountability
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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

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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