Chapter 5 - School Governance and Decision-making in Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This chapter reviews the findings of each case study regarding the way decisions are made about school-wide program and policy and in the teaching and learning process. Opinions of participants about governance and decision-making in the school would be examined where relevant. Both the Community School and the Oberstufen-Kolleg are in part reactions to over-controlling bureaucracies administering excessively prescriptive and standardized educational curricula. Both have succeeded in implementing open processes of decision-making that encourage participation by various groups. At the level of organizational decision-making, the ISOS project at Arellano High School and the Katalin Varga Grammar School are traditional structures that have managed to incorporate and promote innovations at the level of teaching and learning. Their organizational and governance structure in relation to the learning process more or less reflect familiar hierarchical patterns of school organization and decision-making.