Colección: La Educación
Número: (118) II
DEMOCRACY, DECENTRALIZATION AND SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT IN SPAIN
For any nation, the transition from a strong autocratic government to a democracy is arduous, traumatic, and unpredictable, as the newly liberated East European countries are demonstrating. The transition is particularly difficult if the nation is a cobbled together collection of once independent territories that possess distinct cultures, hold to their own traditions, and speak diverse languages.1
Under these latter conditions, the attempt at democratic transition may result in a fractured nation with breakaway republics, as occurred in the Soviet Union; or outright civil war, as happened in Yugoslavia. As these events take shape in the early 1990s, the potential for conflagration, civil war, or return to a hard-line dictatorship is always present.
Fifteen years before the troubled transitions to democracy began in Eastern Europe, Spain successfully faced a similar challenge. Within its borders were vestiges of ancient kingdoms with distinct cultures and diverse languages that demanded their independence. Reminiscent of the Soviet experience, Spain also withstood a coup detat attempt by right-wing military officers demanding a return to the old ways.
In the final analysis, the Spanish experience is instructive because in this case the result was a unified nation that made a swift and pacific transition to democracy.2 The result is sometimes called the Miracle of Spain.
Regarding the field of education, what the Spanish found in the late 1970s the East Europeans are discovering in the early 1990s. That is, establishing a democracy requires the reform of an educational system that reinforces the democracy as well as making effective and efficient use of human and material resources.3 Many countries, like Spain, begin their educational reforms through a process of decentralization.4
The initiative toward establishing local control through decentralization was principally a reaction to a series of powerful forces that were products of forty years of autocratic, centralized rule under the Franco regime.5 Politically and administratively, the educational system and its policies were dominated by tight centralized control.6 Gunther writes:
Prior to the democratic transition of 1977 (when the first free elections were held), the system of public education at the elementary, secondary and university levels was frequently characterized in the research literature as administratively and organizationally centralized, economically underfunded, politically controlled, and academically conservative (e.g., restrained from innovative tendencies).8All key decision makers (the Council of Ministers, civil governors, mayors of large cities, high-ranking bureaucrats, and others) were either directly or indirectly appointed by, and responsible to, him. Moreover, even though he rarely played an active role in the actual formulation of public policy, he imposed constraints on the range of possible policy options available to the state administration, thereby preserving the basic characteristics of that regime until his death in 1975.7
- DEMOCRACY AND DECENTRALIZATION
- STUDY OBJECTIVE
- THE THEORY BEHIND SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT
- THE PRACTICE OF SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT: 1985-1992
- TABLE 1
- ORGANIZATIONAL FORCES BEHIND THE LACK OF CANDIDATES FOR PRINCIPAL
- PERCEPTIONS ON SCHOOL COUNCIL INFLUENCE
- SHOULD SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT BE RETAINED?
- HOW COULD THE PRACTICE OF SBM BE IMPROVED?
- CONCLUDING COMMENTS