Centralized and decentralized educational systems: Α comparative quantitative approach

Nowadays, on the global map of education there are both decentralized and centralized educational systems that appear at about the same rate. Many countries, whenever planning a reform in education, make an effort to decide the ratio of centralization to decentralization of their educational system. Six European educational systems were selected, three of each form, and the values of critical educational indicators in them were compared. The comparison was made for each country individually and for each of the two groups of educational systems of the same category. In this study, the countries were selected on the basis of their representativeness criteria for educational structures, strictly among countries with high critical educational indicators, equal to or greater than the European averages. The study was mainly limited to primary and secondary education. Primary quantitative data was drawn from supranational organizations.