The concept of School-Based Management (SBM) in the document of fundamental transformation of education in Iran

Developed and developing countries are providing different strategies to boost the quality of educational services and receive appropriate outcomes. To achieve this goal, they have moved from centralized to decentralized systems. New theories and research show that in a decentralized environment, those who are responsible for decisions and are empowered for decision-making have more control over their work and remain accountable for their decisions (Murphy, 1991). Education policy makers have different interpretations of decentralization concept. The common element to all these interpretations is to transfer decision power from a central authority to school. In the broader definition of the devolution scope of power, the issues such as curriculum development, staff, facilities, financial resources, infrastructure improvement, monitoring and evaluation of the teacher’s performance and student’s learning outcomes are put in place. One way to decentralize decision-making power in education is school-based management (SBM). School-based management (also referred to as school-based governance, school self-management, or school-site management) brings the decentralization of authority from the central government to the school level (Caldwell, 2005). Malen et al (1990) describe it broadly as: School-based management can be viewed conceptually as a formal alteration of governance structures, as a form of decentralization that identifies the individual school as the primary unit of improvement and relies on the redistribution of decision-making authority as the primary means through which improvement might be stimulated and sustained (p. 290).