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Educ Res Policy Prac (2008) 7:1733
DOI 10.1007/s10671-007-9041-y
I-Wah Pang
Received: 20 June 2007 / Accepted: 26 September 2007 / Published online: 23 October 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
Abstract This paper examined the debate on a reform of school-based management in Hong Kong, which was to set up the Incorporated Management Committee (IMC) to manage the subsidized school. The nature of the debate during legislation and the characteristics of the reform were examined. The advantages, disadvantages and the implications of the reform were discussed. The major concerns of various actors were found to include the control of schools, the mode of participation and the barriers to implementation. It was suggested that via the legislated reform, the control of subsidized schools in Hong Kong will be shifted from a specic type of community control to equal control. In contrast to some reforms of School Based Management overseas, there has been no decentralizing of power on the part of Government in this exercise. In the opposite, it was argued that by requiring the school sponsoring body to set up the independent IMC and to divide its power of among various stakeholders, the Government would assume increased control in school education.
Keywords Decentralization Management Parent involvement Power School
governance School-based management School sponsorship
1 Introduction
School-based management (SBM) has been a major part of the education reform movement over the past three decades. It is a form of decentralization that identies individual school as the primary unit of improvement and relies on the redistribution of decision-making authority as the primary means through which improvement may be stimulated and sustained (Malen et al. 1990). Cheng (1996) indicated that the SBM is to change the management role of schools from a passive executing system to a self-managing system. SBM is widespread in New Zealand and Israel (e.g., Self Managing School), Australia (e.g., Self Governing School),
I.-W. Pang (B)
Department of Educational Policy and Administration, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong, Chinae-mail: [email protected]
School-based management in Hong Kong: centralizing or decentralizing
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the UK (e.g., Grant Maintained School), Canada (e.g., School Council), and introduced in some states in the USA (e.g., Charter School) (Leithwood and Menzies 1998a; Volansky and Friedman 2003). In...