Decentralization Reforms in the East Asian context: histories, challenges, and ways forward

Decentralization Reforms in the East Asian context: histories, challenges, and ways forward
 Mark Olofson
 University of Vermont
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Educational reform is a project that is embarked upon by many different nations around the world. Different cultures and systems seek to reform their systems in many different ways. With the growth of globalization, specifically the globalization of educational performance as measured by international assessments, many countries feel it necessary to conduct real reform, and look to the world for models to guide them. It may then seem counterintuitive for nations that rank highly on these measures to be engaging in reform. However, China, Korea, and Japan, nations that consistently score in the top ten on international assessments, have, over the past quarter century, launched programs to bring about reform in their educational systems. Many of these reforms have taken the shape of decentralization of curricular decision-making, shifting some of the power of how and what to teach down to lower hierarchical levels. This paper will consider these reforms in the East Asian context, and how cultural forces interact with them. Special attention must be paid to the long history of high stakes examinations in these countries, as they add an additional layer of confusion to an already difficult path for these types of reforms.