School Independence and Autonomy

Abstract

The purpose of the symposium was to clarify the current situation in schools in terms of school independence and autonomy. Three panelists of the symposium were Akihisa Kawakami(Principal of Umejima Elementary School, Tokyo), Kazuo Takahashi(Principal of Minato Junior High School, Yokohama), and Shigeru Kainose(Superintendent of Mitaka-City Board of Educationan). As a commentator, Shigeru Amagasa(Professor of University of Chiba) also participated. The panelists expressed their opinions and ideas on school management in three areas: personnel management, financial management, and management of human resources external to schools. The first half of the session focused mainly on the first two areas. The latter half was spent in exchanging opinions on the third area, which was also discussed from the point of view of the two other areas. The issue of school independence and autonomy has been discussed in the past in terms of the national standard as layed out in the course of studies, in which schools had to deal with boards of education. In recent years, however, the issue has been discussed in relation to the school community and parents of children. In addition to this, such issues as "maximum effect with minimum budget", "budgetary request and allocation", "school activities budgeted by themselves and their continuity,", and "accountability for tax payers" were discussed. Budget allocation policy has changed from "compensation" to "competition" which has affected school budgeting and personnel affairs. In this trend, it is important to increase the total amount of budget for school education, not just to increase individual school budgets. A consensus was reached that in order to support change from a closed school system to an open school system, we should examine school evaluation and third-party evaluations as ways to support policy making and school improvement.