ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that education exists and operates within a social setting: even though it is often less than clear in writings on education management what precisely is meant by the term social setting. The literature of attempts to provide policy-makers and management personnel with an understanding of the context and setting of educational institutions has broadly gone in one of two directions. The ways in which educational and education-related policies are formulated and determined, and the legal and administrative frameworks within which the educational institutions operate, are both significant for their functioning, and are frequently significant factors in the analysis of a management situation. Governance System comprises the legal and administrative framework within which the educational organization exists, both with respect to the content of law to forms and traditions of administrative behaviour. Legal and governance systems are usually based upon some type of geographic boundary distribution, and this may be highly important for certain purposes.
