Educational decentralization in three Asian societies: Japan, Korea and Hong Kong

Purpose This paper aims to identify and compare the nature of decentralization that has emerged in three important Asian societies after a decade of their involvement in the decentralization movement. Design/methodology/approach Data from the first cycle of the program for international student assessment were analyzed to investigate educational decentralization in three Asian societies: Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. Cluster analysis was used to reveal the nature and extent of decentralization of the schooling systems in the three societies. Findings The results revealed four models of decentralization: highly centralized, school‐driven, teacher‐driven, and highly decentralized. Whilst the school‐driven model was dominant in Hong Kong, indicating that the school itself is largely responsible for making school‐related decisions, the centralized model was dominant in both Japan and Korea, indicating that authorities outside the school are largely responsible for making school‐related decisions. Research limitations/implications The study is based on cross‐sectional design and focuses mainly on secondary schooling systems in the three Asian societies. Originality/value OECD/PISA constitutes one of the most comprehensive and rigorous international databases about different aspects of educational systems. It provides a unique opportunity to assess the distribution of decision‐making responsibilities between the different stakeholders in different education systems. This enables for the first time a country‐wide comparison on issues of decentralization of various decision areas in this paper.