Balancing Freedom, Autonomy and Accountability in Education: Belarus

Abstract

Freedom, autonomy and accountability are commonly regarded as very important, but policy-makers do not always pay sufficient attention to the tensions among them. Thus freedom or school autonomy may be sacrificed to accountability, or accountability may be weakened in an effort to provide a wider range of choices for parents, or to give more decision-making authority to individual schools. the chapter presents an overview of the status of freedom, autonomy, and accountability in education in Belarus. It provides detailed information on the national education system, describing the laws and policies under which both public and non-public schools operate in Belarus.