188 Brooke Zobrist and Patrick McCormick
administration. At least one interviewee recognized this for themselves,
saying, “We need to change ourselves and our habit of obeying and
fulfilling the instructions of those above us, who tell us what to do.”^39
In the current system, there is no accountability to a local constituency,
including the students themselves. The parent-teacher associations and
school management committees that have been set up in recent years do
not represent local constituencies. Instead, they carry out predetermined
tasks and members are usually appointed, not elected. The institutional
culture — no doubt both reflecting and shaping wider society — views
students as recipients, rather than active participants, in the education
process. Decentralization, however defined, includes such democratizing
features as accountability to, and consultation with, local communities.
The example of stipends for poor students could be an opportunity to
build these practices, not only within the various levels of the Ministry of
Education itself, but between the Ministry and the communities.
CONCLUSION
In the scholarship on decentralization, there appears to be an assumption
that people lower down in an administration will welcome greater decision-
making authority. A benefit of decentralization is that people lower down
in administration have taken, and see the advantages of taking on, more
responsibilities and of having greater authority and autonomy. Before the
process of decentralization, they have responsibilities but only limited
authority over budgeting, decision-making, or ability to influence the
policies made higher up.
Interviewees spoke of decentralization in concrete, not abstract
terms. No one spoke of fundamentally re-evaluating their roles or the
administrative processes in the Ministry of Education. Rather, they spoke
of wanting more discretionary power in relation to specific matters. Some
made it clear they were not eager to take on more authority. For many
people interviewed, to ask for certain kinds of authority would go beyond
what they thought of as possible, or desirable, for providing an education.
Many saw their role as something more akin to providing social welfare
services, such as helping poor students. One kind of authority that many
saw as desirable was for township-level officials and principals to be
able to seek outside funding. Interviewees also tended to focus on what,
in time, could become possible at lower levels of administration, rather