Run by others: school autonomy in Shanghai’s entrustment management reform

The promotion of school-to-school collaboration and school autonomy has popularized in the global trends of school system reform over the past few decades. This article examines the Shanghai experience by specifically taking the entrustment management reform as an illustrative example. Since 2007, the government has contracted ‘good’ schools in urban districts and private non-profit educational organizations to manage a group of relatively ‘weak’ schools in rural districts. Three ‘weak’ schools and their entrusted bodies were investigated in this study to elaborate the nature and structure of school autonomy in the new hierarchical management system. This article argues that rather than leading to substantial redistribution of the autonomy between the government and the school as stated, the reform has reconstructed the school leadership. A kind of ‘one-side-collaboration’ has emerged in ‘weak’ schools’ decision-making processes, which has in effect decreased their autonomy. Nevertheless, the reform has generally proceeded smoothly. This can be articulated through understanding Confucian moral and interrelated autonomy, in contrast to the Western autonomy premised on egoism and rationality and emphasizing the self-other tension, and in China’s political and bureaucratic contexts.