Comparison of Academic Results between Fully Autonomous and Non-autonomous Schools

Abstract

School autonomy empowers schools to make decisions to invest in matters that are important for the school. School autonomy is also related to increased or improved student performance. Since 2014, the Bhutanese Ministry of Education implemented Central School reform initiative, which granted school autonomy in financial matters and school governance. The reform initiative was as a result of surmounting evidences on the perceived decline on the quality of education and student performance. This research attempted to determine if students’ performance in board examinations improved over the consecutive years in one of the central schools. Using students’ board examination marks for four years, this research determined that there were significant improvements in students’ performance, however the findings were inconsistent. Possible reasons for the inconsistent findings are discussed.