Abstract
Over the last four decades, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has shown a keen interest in decentralizing its educational administration. On a number of occasions the government restructured and reorganized its educational administrative machinery. Through the creation of intermediate layers between the central ministry and the schools, the country attempted to maximize efficiency, but the effects were marginal. The government’s stated intention to improve the education system through greater participation by local communities has rarely been met. The multiplication of bureaucratic layers resulted in more complex procedures and confusion about administrative responsibilities. The lack of a strong “work ethic” in newly established layers hindered rather than supported school improvement. Though administrative authority was transferred from the center to the periphery, practice in schools remained almost largely unchanged.
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Perera, W.J. (2006). EFFORTS TOWARD DECENTRALIZATION: IDEOLOGY VS. REALITY—THE SRI LANKAN CASE. In: BJORK, C. (eds) Educational Decentralization. Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4358-1_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4358-1_14
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