School autonomy and subject-specific timetables

The purpose of the project is to investigate the effects of a decentralisation reform that gave schools more authority over how to allocate the instruction time across subjects. The reform was carried out at approximately 900 primary and lower secondary schools in the early 2000s.

This project first examines how the experiment affected the students, by studying their grades, test results and later education. The development of the students in the participating schools is compared to students in schools that did not participate in the experiment, in a so-called difference-in-differences analysis. The project also investigates whether there are differences in the estimated impact between students with different socio-economic backgrounds.

The analysis is based on a register data material of students and teachers, covering the period 1990–2016.