Abstract
The chapter analyses application of New Public Management rationales in Czech education after the year 1989. The conceptual framework, comprising four key characteristics i.e. managers, managing, management and managerialism, is applied to shed light on the analysis.
Overall, the analysis shows that, in the Czech case, New Public Management rationales have been applied rather haphazardly, incongruently and unintentionally, invoking the metaphor of 'travelling on side roads'. Nonetheless, during the last decade, several principles of New Public Management have entered into Czech education, most importantly decentralization, pressure for demonstrable results as well as attempts at standardization.
This development is, however, not a result of carefully planned policy based upon adoption of a coherent New Public Management ideology but rather the consequence of a mix of different - and often conflicting - ideas and previous policies with aims and rationales different from those of New Public Management.