School autonomy in nicaragua: Two case studies

Abstract

In the beginning of the 1990s, Nicaragua started to implement with pressure from the international community - parts of what may be seen as the world model for education. However, there have been two exceptions from this model: Decentralization was labeled an Autonomous school reform (giving the school level more decision-making power than in many other low income countries) and, although private schools are allowed,market mechanisms have not been introduced. This chapter provides a description of how internationally and nationally initiated reforms, very much in the spirit of the world models, play out at the national and then the local level and how specific participants in the reform process - principals, teachers, and students, but especially female heads of households - are enabled or constrained by their daily circumstances and life histories1. The study gives voice to the administrators, teachers, students and their parents involved in the transfer of certain decision-making powers once the exclusive domain of a highly centralized Ministry of Education (MoE). © 2007 Springer.