Purpose: This study aimed to explore Kuwaiti public school principals' experiences in relation to autonomy and accountability after the implementation of the School Education Quality Improvement Project, which aimed to increase the autonomy and accountability of Kuwaiti public schools. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a qualitative…

Purpose: To improve school organisational performance and innovativeness, and meet diverse student needs, school leaders should be innovative, risk-takers and proactive, thus applying entrepreneurial practices/strategies and market mechanisms. This study aims to investigate, from a schoolteacher's perspective, the degree of entrepreneurial…

Purpose: Principal instructional leadership and teacher participation in decision-making are conceptualized as shared instructional leadership (SIL) -- a management philosophy that positively impacts student academic performance. However, the statistically meaningful relationship between SIL and student performance remains controversial as SIL…

Currently, in many developing countries, there have been intensified efforts by policymakers to push for decentralisation of education as part of a neo-liberal reform agenda to improve school management efficiency and cater to localised needs. In the Malaysian context, the government has attempted further decentralisation of autonomy in selected…

The leadership inside and outside the schools envisioned in the context of output-oriented new public management reforms reacts upon the complexity and visibility of changes in a school environment. Thus, the main purpose of this conceptual article is to explore the under-theorized and under-researched relationship of the new public management mix…

This paper explores issues of social justice in relation to the practice of two principals from two Australian public schools. The stories of these principals are set against a policy backdrop in Australia that has seen renewed emphasis on school autonomy reform, on the one hand, and heightened external accountability and compliance, on the other.…

The study aims to analyze the implementation of Good School Governance in vocational schools in Indonesia as a response of the high number of inappropriate employment to the vocational graduates' competencies. This present quantitative descriptive study applies the purposive sampling technique by picking up 852 vocational school principals and…

Schools in Turkey are primarily influenced by the Ministry of National Education ("Milli Egitim Bakanligi") through laws and regulations. Compliance with regulations might be characterised as superficial in many respects and can lead to schools 'decoupling' their espoused structures from the realities of practice. In other words, they…

There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school…

Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into how a group of novice principals, all in schools that deployed principles of autonomy as mechanisms for improvement, conceptualized what the authors label "controlled autonomy"--a condition in which school leaders are expected to both make site-based decisions and be accountable…

Purpose: In order to fill the gap in theoretical and empirical knowledge about the characteristics of principal workload, the purpose of this paper is to explore the components of principal workload as well as its determinants and the coping strategies commonly used by principals to face this personal state. Design/methodology/approach:…

With the promulgation of the South African Schools Act of 1996, public education in South Africa was decentralised and communities were made responsible for school governance. This placed the responsibility on school governing bodies (SGBs) to take all measures within their means to supplement state funding for the acquisition of adequate human…

In 2014, the Springfield Public School district in Massachusetts had tried just about every strategy in the turnaround playbook to improve a set of struggling middle schools, but these efforts failed to generate the desired improvement. In 2015, drawing inspiration from national efforts to infuse schools with enhanced autonomy and accountability,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide national information on school autonomy, leadership and student achievements in Finland. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is a literature review on Finnish studies focusing on school autonomy, leadership and student achievement. The studies have been reviewed on the basis of a content…