Historically, in sharp contrast with the United States, the Australian state systems of public education have always been extremely centralized and hierarchical in structure. While these highly centralized systems served the sparsely populated Australian states well during the early years of this century in providing universal free education and promoting equality of opportunity, many feel that this highly bureaucratized system has become obsolete. Yet only in the 1980s have any of the Australian state education systems undertaken efforts toward decentralization. The most potentially far-reaching efforts are currently underway in Victoria and Western Australia. In Victoria, however, the major efforts to restructure the educational system in 1983-84 to provide for greater local control have since given way to a "corporate management and efficiency movement" which is restoring strong central control. In Western Australia, moves toward devolution of power are more recent, and no specific structure has been proposed for school-based decision-making groups. Hence it is too early to tell whether the movement toward self-governing schools will be successful. Experience to date suggests, on the whole, that the movement toward self-government in Australian schools will be a long evolutionary process, in which reversals toward centralized control will be frequent. (TE)