New "autonomy initiatives" aim to increase schools' decision-making authority as a strategy to leverage school improvement. These policies build on lessons of previous reforms such as site-based management in ways that bode well for their success. However, how are these policies actually faring in implementation? The authors addressed that…

The rapid development of higher education in the postwar period has given rise to various problems, and higher education studies in Japan have developed in response to them. What have been the major issues, and how did academic research respond to them, in postwar Japan? This article delineates an outline of higher education studies in general,…

This article investigates the changing state-university relations in Japan and Malaysia. Its main objective is to identify and examine possible lessons for Malaysia, based on the Japanese experience. Notably, since the late 1970s, Malaysia has been looking towards Japan as a model for socio-economic development (the "look-east" Policy)…

The doctrine of university autonomy in the UK contains a least two major "fault-lines" where the structure is inherently weak and there is danger of functional breakdown. The first occurs at the junction between the institution and the state, the second within the institution, where the unity in policy-making between academic and…

A recent law in a New England state allowed public schools to operate with increased flexibility and autonomy through the authorization of the creation of Innovation Schools. This project study, a program evaluation using a convergent parallel mixed methods research design, allowed for a comprehensive evaluation of the first Innovation School…

It is the contention of this paper that schools are currently sandwiched between demands of the economy on one side and increasingly fundamentalist communities on the other; that schools need some degree of autonomy from each; that the greatest challenge of the century is how we can live together despite our differences; and that the only way of…

Since the last few decades of the twentieth century, increased independence and autonomy of local schools through the implementation of school-based management (SBM) have become widespread in Western education. SBM is designed to operate within a more general framework of decentralisation of the educational authority. This research set out to…

The debate in the UK about the continued existence of the honours degree classification led to a survey of the assessment regulations in 35 varied higher education institutions. This revealed considerable variation in the way in which honours degree classifications are determined, and also in the handling of weak performances by students. Such…

Are teachers unions and collective bargaining agreements barriers to high school reform and redesign efforts in Washington, California, and Ohio? The short answer: sometimes, but not as often as many educators seem to think. Rather than wade into the pro- versus anti-union debate, this report instead aims to offer guidance for educators, unions,…

Based on a comparison of school external evaluation processes in three countries (England, France and Switzerland), this article questions the possible quality turn in the governance of European educational systems. Using materials collected through qualitative methods (91 interviews, surveys of literature and observations) during a sociological…

This article analyses teachers' experience in the period of educational change in Estonia from 1989 to 2010. We review the introduction of the new national curricula and national exams. We show how, in the teachers' experience, the period of change can be divided into two distinct periods. Firstly, the period of freedom and chaos in the early…

External quality assurance of universities exists to assure society that higher education standards are adequate and, in an increasingly global market, that they are comparable internationally. Although society has accepted an implicit compact in giving autonomy to universities in return for their dispassionate service to it, there has been an…

This article considers whether a threat is posed to academic independence in corporate universities by the United States Studies Centre (USSC) at the University of Sydney. The USSC rapidly worked its way into Australia's oldest university, building a unique governance structure in which a private business lobby vets senior academics and controls…

As the charter movement matures and plays a growing role in education reform, educators need to know about the organizational dynamics autonomy creates, the people who end up working in autonomous schools, and the academic programs they choose to employ. That information is critical to helping the charter school sector grow and mature effectively,…

This article makes an argument for a system of higher education governance that allows the university some freedom but one that manages to offer a critical examination of the lived circumstances of people and their worldview. This proposal for higher education autonomy on the continent is in tandem with Africa's experiences as well as giving space…