Neoliberalism and educational decentralization policies: the experience of the 1990s

JORGE M. GOROSTIAGA

Crisis and hope: The educational hopscotch of Latin America

RoutledgeFalmer

Lugar: New York; Año: 2003; p. 115 - 138

This chapter offers an analysis of educational decentralization in Latin America during the 1990s, focusing on the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. It explores the characteristics of decentralization policies and their relationship with neoliberalism in the four countries. The paper argues that school decentralization (or ´school autonomy´), the movement toward transferring functions and responsibilities to schools, appears as a new and extended reform that was accompanied by more traditional forms of decentralization--like provincialization or municipalization--during the 1990s. These decentralization policies were coupled with processes of centralization of planning and evaluation at the national level. This new form of centralization/decentralization is seen as linked to the neoliberal restructuring of the state, to pressures from globalization processes and forces, and to various internal demands for improving quality and efficiency in the delivery of education.