School Governance in the Context of Vietnam’s Two-Tier Local Government Model: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Main Article Content
Abstract
School governance is experiencing significant changes under the implementation of Vietnam’s two-tier local government model. This study examined school governance in the context of administrative reform using survey data collected from 628 school principals, vice principals, and teachers working in primary and lower secondary schools in Southern Vietnam. Descriptive statistics and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were employed to evaluate governance practices and validate the measurement model. The findings indicated that participants reported a high level of agreement regarding the positive impacts of the reform, particularly in terms of school autonomy and flexibility in educational planning. However, substantial implementation barriers related to responsibility allocation, implementation capacity, and resource constraints were also identified. School leaders tended to evaluate governance effectiveness more positively than teachers. CFA results demonstrated satisfactory reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and model fit. The study suggests that administrative reform in education should be accompanied by capacity building and stronger coordination mechanisms among governance levels to ensure effective school management during the transition period.
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