Inr 1. Eduamonal D~velopmenr, ‘$01 6. No 1. pp. 47-W. 1986 0738-0593186 s3 @!I * 0 w Pnnred I” Great Britam Pergamon Press Ltd zyxwvu DECENTRALIZING EDUCATIONAL DECISION-MAKING IN PERU: INTENTIONS AND REALITIES NELLY P. STROMQUIST Stanford University, California, U.S.A. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTS Abstract-The study deals with an attempt to decentralize educational decision-making in Peru and render it participatory. The paper contrasts the intentions and outcomes of the innovation and examines the factors that led to its demise. Political factors such as the reluctance of upper echelons to share power and the teachers’ opposition to the reform were significant obstacies. Issues of cultural and technical natures including centralist traditions and lack of clarity about key concepts and new roIes were also important. The study shows that the implementation of decentralization is a complex and not always predictable undertaking. It also argues that political accounts of reform failures present a simplified and over-rationalized version of reality. INTRODUCTION Governments in developing countries often engage in attempts to achieve nationwide educational change. These attempts, common- ly known as educational reforms, tend to fall short of their explicit objectives. To decrease substantially the illiteracy rate, to prevent dropouts, to provide a more appropriate curri- culum, to narrow the gap between rural and urban facilities and student performance, to increase community and teacher participation in educational decision-making - these varied and ambitious goals are constantly repeated in educational plans; and yet they remain elusive. Why does this occur? The literature on educational innovation - and educational reform provides a massive instance of such innovations - has traditionally emphasized a rational, functionalist perspective despite a progression in our understanding from a nar- row concern with the characteristics of the innovation to an examination of the social context in which it must operate. (For a thorough review of educational innovations and their implementation process see Fullan, 1982.) Under the assumption that there is a societal common good, this perspective has seen innovations as good ideas whose failure to be implemented has been attributed mainly to inappropriate methods used in transferring the innovation (represented by the early writings of Rogers (1962) and those who followed his approach), to the absence of appropriate in- centives for those who are to put the idea into effect (Havelock, 1971; Hall and Loucks, 1978), or to the distance between innovation creators and implementors (Fullan and Pom- fret, 1977). This perspective, termed the ‘conventional paradigm’ in a sharp discussion of educational innovations (Papagiannis et al. ,1982), has been criticized for failing to consider the educational system as a critical social gatekeeper and thus for underestimating structural and institutional factors that operate in class-based societies. These critics contend that a more accurate perspective for the analysis of the implementa- tion of innovations would have to consider power conflicts - conflicts not only among individuals but also among social groups, each pursuing separate interests (see also McGinn and Street, 1985). This alternative perspective, the radical paradigm, has been said to ‘accord well with the real associations we observe and with our experience’ (Papagiannis et al., 1982, p. 274). Undeniably, there is much merit in exploring educational innovations beyond their consid- eration as merely self-contained ideas in a neutral environment. Merritt and Coombs (1977) correctly argue that some innovations 47