Two recent announcements concerning our schools give me hope. Education Minister Hishamuddin Hussein proposed granting autonomy to our leading schools, while Perak Regent Raja Nazrin Shah, chairman of the board of Malay College, suggested that its students sit for the International Baccalaureate (IB) examination. If followed through, both would be positive developments.

Currently, the Education Ministry resembles the Soviet system, with its strict top-down and central command-and-control structure. Our schools and other educational institutions suffer unnecessarily from such rigid constraints. Any loosening of that grip should be welcomed.

The challenges facing Malay College are very different from those of SMK Ulu Kelantan. Those closest to the problems would be in the best position to solve them: the headmasters, teachers, parents, and governing boards.

This is the rationale for school-based management (SBM), with power devolved from the central authority to the local institutions. This is the guiding principle of school reform in Chile, America, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

Like the old Soviet system, if we were to liberalise our schools overnight, there would be chaos. School boards would be the new arenas for aspiring politicians.

Restricting SBM only to leading schools makes sense. They must be already doing something right, so give them greater freedom so they could blossom. If SBM were to be introduced to the average school that does not have a tradition for excellence, there will be no end of conflict among the board members and teachers, to the detriment of the pupils.

The board must have sufficient representation from parents, teachers, former students, and community members. We have many well-educated citizens living in small towns like Kuala Kangsar; co-opting them as board members should pose minimal problem.

There is no point appointing luminaries residing hundreds of miles away.

For SBM to be effective, the schools must be given administrative autonomy (freedom to plan its budget, hire and fire its teachers, and select its students) as well as academic freedom to plan its curriculum, choose the textbooks, and select the appropriate examinations. The ministry would set only broad guidelines.

These schools should be given an annual global budget for operating expenses, and a separate capital budget upon approval by the ministry.

If the school could raise its own funds for capital expansion, then it would not need the ministry's approval.

Granting these schools greater autonomy would encourage others to seek excellence so they, too, could enjoy the freedom. With autonomy comes accountability. The school Ð its board, teachers, and headmaster Ð would be responsible for its performance. Failure to perform would be reason to withdraw that freedom. The converse, excelling, would result in incentive grants.

SBM is the best antidote to the increasingly bloated education bureaucracy. Even if a small proportion of our schools were independently managed, imagine how much smaller the ministry would be!

The savings in overhead could be diverted to the schools to benefit the pupils directly.

SBM would result in headmasterships becoming terminal appointments.

There will be no more headmasters warming their seats while waiting to be promoted up the bureaucracy. One Malay College headmaster stayed only a few months, just enough for an entry on his resume.

Malaysia's best should compete with the world's best. The National Academy of Science regards the IB as one of the two best programmes to prepare students to pursue the sciences, the other being the Advanced Placement (AP) programme.

IB combines breadth with depth; it is much superior to the GCE A Level which, while rigorous, lacks breadth. Many leading universities give first-year credits based on the IB and AP results.

When we set a high bar, our young will respond. For years Mara College at Banting has had a successful IB programme. When I was teaching young surgeons in Malaysia, I insisted that they sit for recognised foreign qualifications like the FRACS and FRCS instead of the local Master's programme.

This was not the residuum of colonial thinking or lack of faith in local institutions, rather that in this era of globalisation, we increasingly depend on internationally recognised yardsticks.

Today, good enough for Malaysia isn't; Malaysians demand global standards. The decisions of the minister and Raja Nazrin bring Malaysia closer to this goal.

The writer, a surgeon in Silicon valley, is currently completing his latest book Towards a Competitive Malaysia. Comments: feedback@ thesundaily.com