This paper studies when decentralization improves public service delivery.I analyze a Chicago reform that awarded select principals greater autonomy over budgets and operations while holding resources largely unchanged.A meta-analysis of similar reforms shows substantial heterogeneity, including both positive and negative effects.Building on insights from public finance, contract design, and psychology, I argue that the returns to autonomy depend on the capacity of local decision-makers (i.e., principals in this context) and the alignment of their objectives with those of central authorities.Event-study estimates show that, on average, increased autonomy improved achievement by about 0.1 standard deviations, effects comparable to resource-intensive interventions but achieved at minimal cost.However, deconvolution analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity, with both negative and positive effects.Design-based evidence supports the theoretical predictions; high-performing principals benefit more, reallocating resources effectively (e.g., reducing class sizes), and schools with atypical student populations benefit more and may tailor services to local needs.These results highlight that local capacity, aligned incentives, and heterogeneity are central to the success of decentralization reforms.
NFT could be used in the field of education, to transform the way of learning and teaching.This article presents some ways in which non-fungible tokens can be used in education and the benefits they offer to those involved in the e-learning process.Unique digital assets, abbreviated as NFT, as well as educational products used in the education sector could have a major impact, because in the field of education there is always a need for new approaches to cover the needs of new learners.The advent of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has changed the way we look at how we educate and educate ourselves.NFTs are unique digital assets that cannot be replicated, making them perfect for the education sector.
This article aims at depicting practical hypotheses of the concept of decentralization in the Romanian pre-university education system, from both financial and administrative perspectives.It shall comprise aspects related to territorial decentralization and decentralization of services.It uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods and underlines the complex advantages which multi-level-governance -related principles can bring to the Romanian education and, within a wider framework, to the overall administration.Definitions and approaches to the decentralization process clearly show an evolution in both the concerns of practitioners and specialists.This evolution must be understood in the context in which even the process of decentralization is not a static reality, suffering transformations depending on the geographic, historical, socio-economic context etc.When talking about decentralization, we must consider both the basic and intermediate level of the local public administration.Therefore, an evolutionary presentation of decentralization also logically includes regional decentralization or regionalization.
Open access
Education in Diverse Contexts
Education, Management, Technology, Human Resources
Financial management has become a critical issue in South African schools. Chapter 13 discusses the implications of school leadership on financial management. It tackles aspects of school financial management in relation to financial organization, planning, monitoring, and control. The implication of decentralized school funding model, policy and legal context of school financing, the role of school governing bodies, and finance committees are foregrounded. The chapter highlights some of the milestones and challenges of school leaders in terms of financial management, thus making recommendations regarding effective school financial management.
Money problems have long plagued America&s;s rural schools. This chapter shows that substantial benefits can accrue to rural communities by centralizing the collection and distribution of educational revenues while concomitantly decentralizing control over educational programs and expenditures. It reviews briefly the history of school finance, discusses in some detail recent reforms in school finance systems in several states to provide a basis for analyzing rural school finance problems and discussing means for solving them. The chapter analyzes their effect on the special problems of rural areas, and suggests additional measures to benefit rural schools in the future. The major school finance problem in rural America remains the uneven geographic distribution of wealth measured both by property and income. A second large issue is the relative sparsity of population, which leads to high expenditures for services like transportation and higher per pupil expenditures for some educational programs.
Cosmos Kwame Dzikunu, Michael Asiaman, Edison Pajibo
This research sought to assess the influence of community participation on educational decentralization in Gbawe, Ga South Municipality in terms of stakeholdersâ contribution to educational decentralization. A concurrent mixed method design was adopted. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were the data collection instruments. A sample size of 108 comprising Municipal Chief Executive, Municipal Director of Education, SMCs and PTA Chairpersons, teachers and parents constituted the study. These were sampled through purposive and random cluster sampling techniques. Descriptive statistics were utilized for the quantitative data analysis while the thematic approach was used for the qualitative data. The findings of the study revealed that parentsâ level of formal education, their attitude towards PTA meetings, their perceptions about the literate population among them and the attitude of SMCs and PTAs towards school finance affected local level participation and educational administration. The study affirmed that decentralization is an effective tool for development in the Gbawe cluster of schools. Based on the findings and conclusions drawn, it is recommended that stakeholders or authorities in the realm of education should endeavour to give community members the opportunity to contribute to educational decentralization. Also, a portion of the Municipal Assembly Common Fund meant for education should be increased to meet the current educational needs of local communities.
By 2022, a change in the form of government from unitary to federal will likely happen in the Philippines, a nation of 104 million. Although decentralization is not new to the country owing to the passage of the Local Government Code of 1991, the transition will have major policy implications on the assignment of expenditure and revenue (taxation) responsibilities for government functions. This study focuses on the technical and vocational education and training (TVET), an important component of the Philippine Governmentâs national strategy for economic development and poverty alleviation. TVET governance in the Philippines is placed under the authority of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), an agency attached to the national government which operates a network of over a hundred TVET training schools and institutes. With the impending shift to a federal system, TESDA needs to formulate a decentralization strategy, determining which sub-functions of TVET governance should be retained at the national level, devolved/transferred to subnational governments, and shared between the two levels government. This paper maintains that in addressing these policy issues, the Philippine Government should be guided by the principles of fiscal federalism and informed by existing TVET vi decentralization models in federal countries worldwide. This paper utilizes comparative institutional analysis, an analytical framework that examines existing institutional arrangements in some jurisdictions to inform policy formulation elsewhere. TVET governance in eight federal countries are analyzed by answering this question: Which sub-functions are assigned to what level of government? The sub-functions of the TVET system are: a) policy formulation and planning, b) standard-setting and regulatory, c) financing/contracting and d) provision of TVET services to clients. Based on the findings of the study, policy makers in the Philippines are enjoined to consider the following policy recommendations on decentralizing TVET under the proposed federal system: a. TVET policy formulation, planning, standard-setting and regulatory functions should be assigned solely to the national government so that TVET governance is harmonized across jurisdictions, and to be consistent with the national governmentâs equity goals; b. Financing/contracting for TVET can initially be assigned as a âshared functionâ between the national and subnational governments; however, in the long term, the subnational governments should develop their local revenue generation capacity and eventually be responsible for TVET financing/ contracting in their jurisdictions. Policy makers should also explore alternative models for TVET financing such as inclusion of TVET in the existing Special Education Fund (SEF) and establishing a TVET Training Fund; vii c. Provision of TVET training services can initially be a âshared functionâ between the two levels of government; however, as experiences of federal countries clearly show, the primary responsibility of providing TVET services to clients should rest with the subnational governments.
Modern apprenticeship is the priority of current vocational education reform in France. This article overviews the reform, including the background, the achievements, the management and the pedagogy. It reflects on the features of the reform in the end: government-led, decentralization, higher education level, financing drive and quality assurance.
This is a study of financial disparities in primary and secondary education in OECD countries that have a relatively large population and a school finance system with decentralized features. These countries include the United States, Britain, Australia, Spain, Canada, and Japan. There are two major research questions: What are the trends in disparities in per-student education spending during the 1990s and early 2000s period? What government policies or factors may explain these trends? Common statistics such as the coefficient of variation, the restricted range, the federal range ratio, and Gini coefficient are used to measure disparity in per-student spending. Sub-national data for this study are obtained from published government sources. There are three major findings: (1) there was a general trend towards a reduction in inequity in per-student education spending in these countries; (2) this equalization trend was associated with a variety of financing policies implemented in these countries; and (3) a larger share of regional government funding relative to the share of local government funding, intergovernmental transfer, and the design of school funding formulas are crucial factors for enhancing equity in education funding. The policy towards centralization in education finance system also appears to be an important factor in financial equalization.
Without a real change, the Romanian education system and especially the preuniversity system will not be able to overcome its instability and provisional character. The reforms that started in 2000 must continue. The success of the decentralization of the pre-university system, as a basic component of the reform, greatly depends on the manner in which the financing of preuniversity education must be carried out in accordance with the number of pupils, and the funds must be assigned to place the pupil in a flexible and facile environment.
This paper does an empirical study on the impact of decentralized school finance and personnel management system on the rural compulsory education quality with the method of hierarchical linear model and the data of Rural Compulsory Education Survey launched by China's Education Finance Research Institute in 2007.Results show that the decentralized personnel management system has a statistically significant positive effect on the education quality,but the decentralized school finance system has a statistically mixed effect on the education quality.In order to improve the quality of rural compulsory education and advance the reform of the new guarantee mechanism of education funds in the middle and east regions,rural primary and secondary schools should be given certain autonomy to use funds and meanwhile,the monitoring mechanisms for the process of the use of public funds in schools should be improved and strengthened.And the decentralized system of personnel management of teachers should be implemented and certain degree of autonomy of personnel management of teachers should be given to principals in rural schools.
This paper does an empirical study on the impact of decentralized school management system on the student's math achievement in rural compulsory education with the method of hierarchical linear model and the data of Rural Compulsory Education Survey launched by China's Education Finance Research Institute in 2007.Results show that the decentralized personnel management system has a statistically significant positive effect on the student's math achievement,but the decentralized school finance system has a statistically mixed effect on the student's math achievement.Based on the above conclusion,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations to improve the quality of math teaching in the compulsory education in mid-east china and advance the implementation of the reform of New Mechanism: giving the autonomy of the use of certain expenses and personnel management for teachers to principals in rural primary and secondary schools,and strengthening the monitoring mechanisms for the process of the use of public expenses in schools.
Based on a random survey for 50 school districts in 20 counties of western China,this pa- per empirically measures and discusses the allocation of personnel power in rural education system. By examining the characteristics of personnel administration system,we discover that the impacts of education finance reform on the reallocation of personnel power.The personnel power in the educa- tion system has been centralized to county education bureau and party organization bureau in most of sample school districts,while the township government gradually loses the control during the educa- tion finance reform.Only in a small number of districts,the decentralized system for personnel ad- ministration can be established.
This paper has analyzed the reasonable compulsory education financial system arrangement under the public financial system,and the main question of the present compulsory education financial system in our country,In this foundation,this paper proposed the basic train of thought of further improving our country compulsory education finance system,that is: under the major premise of the moderate decentralization of compulsory education finance,besides increasing the financial transfer payment of a few poor counties,more importantly,the Central authorities and the province government should solute the drive insufficiency of county government in the compulsory education expenditure through the effective intervention mechanism.
Financing Schools for High Performance: Strategies for Improving the Use of Educational Resources by Allan Odden and Carolyn Busch, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1998. $31.95 ISBN 0-787-94060-7 Review by Carla Edlefson Ashland University Ashland, Ohio long-term task is to get schools...to act more like producers of high levels of student achievement rather than mere consumers of educational resources or providers of traditional educational services (p. 25). Thus begins Financing Schools for High Performance, a book that links the current best thinking about school funding with what we know about school improvement. The central theme of the book is that there are ways to use current resources better and...schools can begin the process of increasing student achievement with funds already in the education system (p. 164). The first chapter summarizes research indicating that wealthy and poor school districts have similar patterns of resource allocation. High-spending districts do not pay salaries that are all that much higher, and they don't have a lower student-to-teacher ratio in the core academic subjects. They do hire more staff who are specialists, to deal with various kinds of student needs, but these specialists have little effect on student achievement. What does affect student achievement, according to chapter two, is to center change on student learning and a rigorous instructional program (p. 29) and to decentralize decisions about staff and resources to the building level. Part two, chapters three through five, describes three models that state governments could emulate in order to decentralize school funding. Chapter three presents the charter school model and provides a useful comparison of legislation passed by 26 U.S. states, as of December 1996. The authors stress that the success of charter schools will depend on whether or not they are adequately funded and given real authority over the use of their resources. Chapters four and five describe in some detail the funding systems in England and in Victoria, Australia, as demonstrations that site-based funding does work. Chapter six lays out steps that a state could take to structure a site-based school financing system. They are: 1) identify what will be district-level responsibilities and what will be handled at the site; 2) divide the district budget into two parts: the central office and the sites; 3) design an allocation formula to distribute the site budget to the individual schools, taking into account special student needs, etc.; 4) determine what kind of documentation schools will do; e.g., linking their budget to their school improvement plans. The recommendation is that a state would pass legislation requiring districts to do site-based budgeting and then hold individual schools accountable for student achievement results. This book is directed more at policy experts than practitioners, but chapters seven and eight should be of interest to secondary school administrators. Chapter seven, Reallocating Education Dollars' to Improve Results, cites research on individual schools that have adopted reform models, and within existing resource levels, have reallocated and restructured in order to improve student outcomes. Characteristics of these high performance schools include a) curriculum based on high standards b) whole-school reform; c) students grouped differently for instruction; d) teacher involvement in decision-making; and e) emphasis on professional development (pp. 168-169). For example, the New American Schools (NAS) project (www.naschools.org) has tested seven different reform models. Even though each of the models requires money for new people or materials, Odden and Busch show that with reallocation, a school that has resources equal to the national average could not only afford to implement any of the NAS models, but also have money left over. âŠ
In 1984, slightly more than a decade ago, neo-liberal economic theory under the guise of 'free market' reform was ushered into New Zealand for the first time in the country's history by the ruling Labor Government. The initiation of monetary reform policies sent shock waves throughout the nation. The ensuing fiscal reforms changed the operating patterns of both public and private organizations as well as the lives of individual citizens. This paper examines the political and economic environment which preceded the enactment of the broad sweeping educational reforms. The purpose of this paper is to review policy papers and government documents that affected educational reform and restructuring of the tertiary educational system. Although primarily focusing on tertiary educational change, this thesis will also summarize educational policy changes that premeated compulsory education. As a primary service organization of the state, education was caught up in the tide of market reforms ushered in by the Treasury Department. The initiation of monetary policy changes sent shock waves throughout the nation as it drastically altered the 'cradle to grave' welfare philosophy. Restructuring the educational bureaucracy and establishing greater accountability were the general aim of the decentralization process. The 1989 Education Act stream-lined the educational bureaucracy by dismantling the Department of Education and its ten regional offices. In its place, the Ministry of Education was established with the main function as a policy advisor to the government. This structural change coincided with the tertiary education functions being transferred to four new agencies: 1). The Ministry of Education, 2). The New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 3). The Educational and Training Support Agency, 4). The Careers Service. Tertiary Education in New Zealand was modified in greater detail following the passage of the Education Act of 1990. This act extended the changes initiated with the Education Act of 1989. It essentially established tertiary educational institutions as autonomous bodies and placed polytechnics on the same bureaucratic structure as universities. More importantly, this new educational law of 1990 transferred the technical and skilled training standards to the Ministry of Education. The free market economic reforms initiated in the mid-80's have influenced educational restructuring by expecting more accountability on the part of the educational institution and greater choice on the part of the student consumer. Recent tertiary education reforms highlight the delicate balance between professional and technical education and the needs of the state as well as the rights of the students.
This article assesses the policy strategy for local management of schools in Victoria, Australia within the high involvement framework for creating high performance organizations. The high involvement framework as adapted to education hypothesizes that a decentralized strategy for improving educational performance requires decentralizing four key resources: power over the budget and personnel functions; information about revenues, expenditures, costs and best practices; knowledge and skills including both technical and business knowledge; and rewards including compensation and other incentives. The framework also includes an instructional guidance framework of curriculum standards and student assessment to those standards, and facilitative principal leadership. Based on two years of data collection at both the state and school levels, focusing on governance, management, finance, and curriculum and instruction, the study found that Victoria's Schools of the Future ranked high on all six variables, and that the decentralization process was working smoothly and major changes were being made in curriculum and instruction when school sites also ranked high on the six variables
Systemic educational policy recommends creating more ambitious instruction in schools through a centralized strategy of mandatory curriculum frameworks, high-stakes student assessments, and coordinated teacher training. This article suggests serious problems with such a strategy and recommends a decentralized alternative involving local choice of curricula, technical assistance, and professional development. Arguments for, problems with, and alternatives to the centralized strategy are examined in eight dimensions of educational policy: curriculum development, curriculum stratification, educational indicators, high-stakes examinations for students, school improvement, educational finance, educational governance, and teacher training. The article concludes with recommendations for policy and research.
Changes in public policy with respect to governance structures require complementary changes in public policy concerning the financing of educational services. Drawing on their findings from studies in Australia, England and the USA, the authors present a framework to clarify what is happening in the restructuring of school governance and to project the implications for public policy concerning the finance of schooling. The political system is represented by a decision matrix which arrays the decisions that have to be made about financing schools (who gets what, when and how) with the primary decision makers (society, the educating profession and families). The decisionâmaking process is shown to be a dynamic one, causing the nature of acceptable decisions to change along with politicalâeconomic environments and with priorities given to policy objectives. Using the model, the implications of alternative centralization/decentralization strategies for school finance policy are examined under varying circumstances.