Rise and Fall of Decentralized School Governance—Decision-Making Practices in Georgia

Abstract

<p class="apa">The current study investigates educational decision-making in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The focus is on decisions concerning issues of school governance decentralization/recentralization in the period of 2003-2012. The research draws on in-depth interviews with over 20 top decision-makers, and an extensive review of legal documents, relevant research and media reports to gain a better understanding of decision-making practices in a newly democratized state. Two theoretical foundations are employed: the Multiple Streams model of decision-making and Electoral Connection. The research largely supports the Multiple Streams theory and expands the theory of Electoral Connection to fit the political setting of a post-soviet state. Among other findings, the research shows that decisions concerning school governance recentralization were primarily election-driven.</p>

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“…The existence of school committees is legalized on a Decree of the Minister of National Education. This is an advisory role of good school governance, representing cooperation with the school board and the community (Gorgodze, 2016). In Indonesia, there is a support system needed to achieve and implement a good school governance model, namely the Regional Government, in this case, the District Education Office, District Education Council, School Supervisors, Higher Education Institutions for Educators and Education, Business and Industry, and Institutions Education Quality Assurance.…”

“…Consequently, some changes create a new environment at schools (Kowalczyk & Jakubczak, 2014). However, schools autonomy and participatory governance would be significant for schools improvement (Gorgodze, 2016). The schools turn into independence in which the schools are managed professionally according to their respective functions and roles without any pressure (Larasati et al, 2018).…”

The Association Between Parent Participation in School Management and Student Achievement in Eight Countries and Economies

“…The finding implies that allowing a large number of parents to influence school decision-making might have caused detrimental effects on school operation and students' learning. In fact, the literature suggests that, although participatory school boards were introduced in the country during the 2000s, schools were not properly prepared to engage parents in school decision-making due to insufficient capacity as well as corruption and chaos in school governance resulting from frequent changes in the country's decentralization policy (Dzotsenidze, 2018;Gorgodze, 2016;The World Bank, 2014). In such circumstances, engaging parents who are not education professionals in school decision-making might have reduced school effectiveness.…”

The use of technology to enable school governors to participate remotely in meetings: A solution to skilled governor shortages in schools?

“…Changes in school governance reveal different trends in different countries. Whilst Lin and Wu (2013) and Viseu and Carvalho (2018) report on decentralized school governance in Japan and Portugal leading to school GBs requiring governors with business skills, in the differing political contexts of South Africa (Duku and Salami, 2017) and Canada (Seel and Gibbons, 2012), there is a greater emphasis on community engagement, and in Georgia (Gorgodze, 2016) there is a move towards recentralization and government control.…”