From Hard to Soft Governance in Multi‐level Education Systems

Abstract

Decision‐making in educations systems has become more complex: while decentralisation has moved the locus of power to lower governance levels, the central level still is held responsible for the quality of outcomes. As a consequence, new steering strategies have emerged that tend to apply softer modes of governance as opposed to harder ones in the past. This article aims at shedding empirical and conceptual light on these new developments. It compares two national examples for soft modes of governance with a supra‐national one (the EU's Open Method of Co‐ordination OMC) and argues that OMC might be both a useful analytical lens to categorise new steering mechanisms and a possibly promising policy strategy at the national level.

Política Educacional no Ceará: processos estratégicos

“…This study argues that Ceará represents an important case of multi-scale governance, helping to understand the "[...] interconnectivity of policy-making activities" (Stephenson, 2013, p. 817). The importance of multi-scale governance in Education has been highlighted by different studies (Borges, 2003;Dale, 2010;Reis, 2013;Sundby, 2014Sundby, , 2016Abrucio, 2016;Santos et al, 2016) and has special significance for those interested in the role of the state in different contexts, particularly in globalization scenarios.…”

Kako poimenovati sodobne strukture in procese oblikovanja ter izvajanja izobraževalnih politik in praks? Razmislek o slovenjenju termina »governance«

“…Ker na mednarodni ravni ni oblasti in akterjev, katerih delovanje bi lahko opredelili s pojmi, ustaljenimi v nacionalnih okvirih, se je za oblikovanje in izvajanje izobraževalnih politik na mednarodni ravni vzpostavi lo poimenovanje global (education) governance (Meyer in Benavot, 2013) in European (education) governance (Evropska komisija, 2001). Ker gre pri tem za (so)delovanje ak terjev na nadnacionalni, nacionalni, regionalni, lokalni in individualni ravni, se je (pred vsem v EU) uveljavil tudi izraz multi-level governance (Wilkoszewski in Sundby, 2016). Po več kriterijih inovativen način sodelovanja akterjev v EU na področju izobraževanja pa je glede na svoj odmik od tradicionalne metode skupnosti poimenovan tudi z izrazom new modes of governance (Eberlein in Kerwer, 2002).…”

“…268). Wilkoszewski in Sundby (2016) pojasnjujeta, da v novi obliki vladavine ministrstva, pristojna za izobraževanje, ostajajo ključni akterji tako v razmerju do ravni EU kot v razmerju do preostalih (regionalne, lo kalne, šolske) ravni in individualnih akterjev (učiteljev, staršev, učencev). Jordan in drugi (2005) pa menijo, da novi javnopolitični instrumenti, ki so značilni za vladavino, v veliko primerih zahtevajo udeležbo države, tako kot so bili pri tradicionalni vladi pogosto vklju čeni nedržavni akterji.…”