Australian Development Gateway

The Australian Development Gateway (ADG) strives to support members of the development community in their efforts to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development in the Asia Pacific region. The site has been created with participation from members of government, private, academia and non-government organisations. User feedback mechanisms have been incorporated to guide future directions of the site. The site is optimised for low bandwidth access to enable the widest participation throughout the Asia Pacific region.

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Reform issues

Education reforms in East Asia: policy, process, and impact (pdf 265kb)

This chapter looks at the growing trend of decentralising the education sector in East Asia. Focusing on primary and secondary education sectors, it explains the varying forms of the transfer of responsibility.

This chapter reviews the experiences of East Asian countries in decentralising their education systems, with the goal of understanding the challenges of designing reforms, distilling lessons on implementation, and examining the impact on educational development. Decentralisation laws typically stipulate dramatic reallocations of authority and responsibility among levels of government and also transfers of resources. However, the experience in East Asia and, indeed, in nearly all countries that have decentralised suggests a lack of congruence between design and implementation, or between de jure and de facto decentralisation.

 

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