Striking a Balance between Centralized and Decentralized Decision Making: A School-Based Management Practice for Optimum Performance

Purpose of the Study: School decision-making promotes school autonomy and success. Today’s contemporary approach supports the idea that operative school functioning and development are characteristically accomplished when there is decentralized decision-making. Hence, the purpose of the study is to find the balance between decision-making in a centralized and decentralized structure in a school based system. Methodology: An extensive search of major databases was undertaken, which identified 35,822 studies on the subject, wherein 9 met the inclusion criteria. Employing a systematic literature review, data were extracted and analyzed using thematic analysis. Two themes arose from the analysis of the studies, such as decision-making as a school-based management practice and decision-making towards school performance. Main Findings: Studies on decision-making in school management from a sociological approach. It also highlights the need to mix centralized and decentralized techniques to improve education. Following are some debate points that might want more research: (1) school principal decision-making and (2) school running expense and spending decision-making. Research Implications: The study's findings will aid in improving staff performance and community comprehension of schooling. Increased participation of internal and external stakeholders can boost school autonomy and accountability. The novelty of the study: As a school-based management technique, the correct balance of centralized and decentralized decision-making might enable schools to function at their best while corporations attain peak performance.

GLIGORIJE JEFTANOVIĆ AND THE STRUGGLE FOR CHURCH AND SCHOOL AUTONOMY

The first part of this paper presents a brief history of the beginning and course of the Serbian people’s struggle in the provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina for Church and school autonomy and the role Gligorij Jeftanović played as one of the two most important figures leading the movement. The second part of the paper deals with correspondence between Gligorije Jeftanović and Lazar Pupić in 1901 during the time a Serbian envoy was being selected to travel from Sarajevo to Constantinople and attempt to win over the Ecumenical Patriarch to the Serbian cause by gaining support for the Third Imperial Memorandum. It also looks at correspondence after the election with the chosen envoy, Kosta Kujundžić, who tried but failed to win the Ecumenical Patriarch over to the Serbian side. The third part deals the adoption of the Statute on Church and School Autonomy and the decline in Gligorije Jeftanović’s popularity after the emergence of a young, university-educated Serbian intelligentsia, which had new ideas and demands concerning new goals for the continuation of the struggle.

Aligning School Autonomy and Social Justice Approaches to Reform in School Breakfast Clubs in Australia

The purpose of education and school reform is a topic of constant debate, which take on a different perspective depending on the motivation of those calling for change. In the Australian context, two of the loudest school reform agendas in the early 21st century center on school autonomy and social justice. The school autonomy agenda focuses on freeing up schools from the centralized and bureaucratic authorities, enabling them to respond to the local needs of their students and school community. Social justice reform focuses on equity, including lack of opportunity, long-term health conditions, low educational attainment, and other intersecting inequalities, and practices of care and nurture that focus on emotional, behavioral, and social difficulties in order to address the disadvantages and inequalities experienced by many students and families. In the early 21st century, school autonomy and social justice reform have been engulfed by neoliberal ideology and practices. Schools are encouraged to engage in a culture of competitive performativity dictated by market-driven agendas, whereas equity has been transformed by measurements and comparisons. Neoliberalism has been heavily critiqued by scholars who argue that it has mobilized the school autonomy agenda in ways that generate injustice and that it fails to address the social issues facing students, families, schools, and the system. Schools are committed to care and social justice, and, when given autonomy without systems-level constraints, they are adept at implementing socially just practices. While the neoliberal agenda focuses on the market and competitive performativity, the premise of school autonomy is to empower school leadership to innovate and pursue opportunities to respond more effectively to the needs and demands of their school at the local level. Schools are implementing social justice practices and programs that introduce responsive caregiving and learning environments into their school culture in order to address the holistic wellbeing and learning needs of their students and school community. With an increasing commitment to addressing disadvantage through the provision of breakfast food, schools are creating wraparound environments of nurture and care that have become enablers of students’ learning and of their connectedness to school and their local community. Adopting a whole-school approach, principals have demonstrated how social justice and school autonomy reform has aligned to address the overall educational commitment to excellence and equity in Australian education.

Coping With Challenges of the COVID-19 Lockdown in Public Education of Lithuania and Slovenia: Views of School Heads

This article presents the findings of a comparative research conducted during the lockdown among public school heads in Lithuania and Slovenia in spring 2020. The study highlights how the school heads organized remote education, what challenges they faced, what examples of good practice they developed, and how these could be used to deal with similar situations in the future. The research indicated significant school autonomy regarding the centralised support measures provided to Lithuanian and Slovenian schools.

Principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and educational leadership

This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issues for school principals and the implications for understandings and practices of educational leadership. These include varied understandings of autonomy, practices of leadership and implications for health, workload and well-being. The paper argues that while principals have mixed perceptions of school autonomy policies, there has been a narrowing of leadership experiences by principals in the form of managerialism and compliance. Furthermore, principals continue to experience high levels of workload, and some principals, depending on career stage and experience level, feel better able to work within and sometimes against these policies in their schools and communities. These practices are sometimes felt to be despite the system and not due to school autonomy policies themselves. The implication of these findings is that principals are inequitably able to respond to and implement school autonomy policies, an issue often glossed over in educational leadership research.