High School Education in a Variety of Regional Autonomy: Paradigm and Challenges

This study combines heuristic and phenomenological approaches to analyze past phenomena regarding issues related to the implementation of school autonomy. A naturalistic approach regarding contemporary logical phenomena is used to see the practice of school autonomy after being returned to the provincial government. The main data sources of this study were school principals, teachers, school committee administrators, education leaders, and experts who were selected at random. The results of the study revealed that, in the early phase of regional autonomy, schools had flexible authority in managing the contribution of the provincial government; quality control through the results of the National Examination became the main requirement in determining graduation and became a source of pride for district/city governments. District/city governments compete fiercely in achieving the highest ranking through the implementation of the National Examination. This causes cheating to often become a debated issue among education observers and the public regarding the imple- mentation of the National Examination. The research findings show that, since 2017, the issue of cheating on the National Examination is no longer a frightening specter because student graduation is no longer only determined by the National Examination.