School Autonomy and Financial Management in Public High Schools : A Case Study of 'S' Prefectural Board of Education and 'M' Technology High School

The purpose of this paper is to identify the process and constitution of funding for a public high school, and point out issues in terms of the expansion of school autonomy. The findings of this paper are as follows: (1) The principal's discretionary fund works well for schools with distinctive features. (2) There is a system in which the school's opinion is reflected in the school budgeting process by the board of education. However, (3) the school budget allocated by the board tends to be the minimum standard cost to operate the school. In addition, (4) there is not a well organized system in which teachers participate to discuss the school budgeting. It is expected that school budgeting based on policy evaluation will be promoted for more effective use of the resources