School Autonomy in China: A Comparison Between Government and Private Schools Within the Context of Decentralization.

An educational decentralization policy has been imposed on the education system in China since the mid-1980s. This policy change has delegated a certain extent of autonomy from the central to other educational stakeholders — namely local governments, local communities or even individuals. However, recent Western discussions on the issue of educational decentralization policy have argued that this merely means the devolution of financial and managerial control to lower levels, while retaining centrally defined educational goals for schools to accomplish and standard assessment criteria for schools to achieve. Schools, to a different extent, are still controlled by the State. This paper is an attempt to use the decentralization experience in Guangdong Province of China to examine the impact of decentralization policy on the expansion of school autonomy. Firstly, the discussion will be on what decision-making powers, if any, are expanded at the school level as a result of the policy shift. Secondly, comparison of school autonomy between government and private schools will also be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]