The key facts

  • Experts believe education governance should stem from philosophy and goals, not only from measurable KPIs.
  • Three global governance models are cited: a single ministry (Japan, South Korea, India since 2020), a divided one (Russia since 2018) and a federal one (Germany, the USA, Canada).
  • According to the participants, autonomy of schools and universities, provided quality and transparency are ensured, is linked to better results (PISA, Hanushek's research).

On the specifics of education governance

Gazeta dedicated the fourth episode of the Ta'lim 360 podcast to the governance of the education system. It featured regular expert Komil Jalilov and education specialist Azamat Akbarov; the episode was prepared by Dilshoda Shomirzaeva. Komil Jalilov noted that governing education differs from running a factory or a region: the result in education, especially in general secondary education, is visible only after 11 years — when a generation finishes school and enters universities or the labour market. Therefore traditional KPIs may not work, and governance must rest on philosophy: first, one needs to determine what kind of person the system wants to produce.

Trust instead of bureaucracy

Azamat Akbarov believes the main goal of governance is not the circulation of millions of documents but raising the teacher's potential. He cited the example of the United Kingdom, where in 2001 a Delivery Unit was created within the prime minister's structure, testing strategies through pilot programmes with specific goals before implementation in schools and universities. According to him, in Finland governance is divided into two parts: accounting for reports, resources and hours — and measuring how the result affects the student and the teacher. Beautiful-looking schools 'on paper' meanwhile push students' real literacy into the shadow. In Finland and Singapore the system rests on trust: in Finland there has been no school inspection since 1991, and in Singapore the inspection does not have great power. Without mutual trust, the expert believes, governance turns into a heavy bureaucratic mechanism: more staff, unnecessary signatures and daily new laws, which reduces the impact on quality.

A single ministry or separate governance

Asked whether it is effective to govern the entire system — from kindergartens to universities and the training of scientific personnel — from one centre, Komil Jalilov replied that there is no single correct answer: international practice includes both unified and separate models. But concentrating everything in one ministry carries risks: a huge, inefficient system may emerge, issuing daily orders merely to confirm its own existence. In his view, higher education in most cases remains autonomous and should be independent, so as to train independent, analytically thinking specialists. Schools and kindergartens should also be granted part of the powers on the basis of trust. He referred to research on the correlation between school autonomy and the quality of education, including PISA data, the book by PISA founder Andreas Schleicher 'Jahon miqyosidagi ta'lim' and the research of economist Eric Alan Hanushek published by the World Bank. He also mentioned an article by a Turkish scholar in international journals: Turkey is among the OECD countries with relatively low PISA results, and one of the reasons is excessive centralisation of the system; according to the expert, Turkey's current policy deprives universities of academic independence, and rectors are appointed by the central government.

Three global models

Azamat Akbarov stressed that structures in themselves do not matter — what matters is the management style and the intention. He identified three types of governance: a single ministry (Japan, South Korea, Finland; in India in 2020 the system was merged into a single ministry of education), a divided one (in Russia, by 2018, the ministries were split into two) and federal distribution (Germany, the USA, Canada), where schools are subordinate to the regions and the ministry remains a small centre of strategic research on the country's human resource needs. In Finland, since 2009, schools follow a single national curriculum, while universities have legal autonomy. The expert added that without research and strategy, ministries can be merged and split every year to no avail. In his view, universities should contribute to GDP: in Malaysia it is 5%, in the USA — 10%. Without autonomy and a mentality of investing in the future, universities will not differ from schools.

Risks of a unified approach and distribution of powers

Komil Jalilov noted that the idea of a single ministry may stem from good intentions — the absence of gaps between educational programmes — but it carries a risk: schools and universities have different philosophies and environments. If one ministry checks the menu in a kindergarten in the morning, discusses school uniforms at midday and then teaches university students how to dress, that is a big risk; a university must have a free academic environment, and not all decisions should come down from the centre. In his view, the ministry, together with research institutes and the public, should define the overall goal — what a graduate should be like in 11 years — while specific methods and decisions on the ground should be made by teachers: programmes, methodology, textbooks and resources are decided by schools within the given strategy. The centre physically cannot delve into the conditions of thousands of schools, he noted. Akbarov added that in international practice textbooks and methods are determined by the school itself, and autonomy is granted under two conditions — quality and transparency: new schools are not given it in full immediately, but it is expanded as their results grow. In the Netherlands the state allocates an equal budget to schools — from a remote village to Rotterdam and the centre of Amsterdam — and an independent inspection oversees this. In Singapore decentralisation proceeds through clusters: 7–8 schools of a region are united, and the ministry develops programmes for them. Universities, however, are autonomous because they determine the country's future and lead it to industry 4.0–5.0: South Korea, which until the late 1980s received humanitarian aid from Egypt, became an 'Asian tiger' in a short time thanks to university know-how.

What else was discussed in the episode

According to Gazeta, the full video of the podcast also discussed quality assessment, the implementation of reforms in an ideal governance model, and the main fundamental steps. This is the fourth episode of the series; the previous three were devoted, in particular, to the philosophy of education.