The economic, social and political dimensions on decentralization of educational services: Applicability in Turkey

ABSTRACT Today, important and drastic changes occur all over the world in the theory and application of public service. These changes occur on three main axes. These are; changes in the views regarding government, decentralization and civilization in management and service understanding, management logic in the private sector and the application of its techniques to public administration and services. These aforementioned changes are milestones of the transformation in the political, social, cultural, administrative and economic fields desired by neo-liberal policies that came about during 1980s as a result of the criticisms to the welfare state understanding brought about by these policies in the 1970s. The 1980s when neo-liberal approaches were dominant is accepted as a period during which many understandings changed regarding public administration, public property and services. Education services are the most important service types that have changed among the public property and services. The decentralization, civilization and privatization efforts that took place in education services considered among the semi-public property and services are seen as important developments in the solution of problems such as excessive centralization, inefficiency, ineffectiveness and lack of quality. Intensive studies have been carried out in this field internationally and the effect of the decentralization of education services on service quality, success of the student, existence of legal grounds, educational rights and equalities have been considered. Current theories and results obtained from the international examples of this transformation have been combined in this study which was conducted to examine the applicability of the decentralization of education services in Turkey. Thus, the possible positive and negative economic, social and political results of the decentralization of education services were tried to be put forth. The existence of the infrastructure required for the decentralization of education services in Turkey has also been examined within the framework of factors such as the legal grounds, political environment, technical, administrative and financial capacities of local administration units, unearned income possibilities and equality anxiety. Hence, evaluations were tried to be made regarding the rationality of the decentralization movement in education services in the light of the economic, social and political dimensions as well as our own local dynamics. As a result of study that in the field of education in the world is decentralization movement however decentralization of education services (especially at the level of devolution) in Turkey is concluded that inconvenient under current conditions. For this reason, emphasis is given to the importance of the presence of the central government in educational services. In addition to, applications of the pilot city or region proposed to better analyze the possible consequences of this transformation. Keywords: Education, Education Services, Decentralization, Privatization, Decentralization of Education