1 Concept and approaches to education administration manage ment and governance

Ms. Rajwinde Kaur

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

1.      Introduction

2.     Learning outcomes

3.     Common features of Educational Administration

4.     Principles of educational administration

5.     Functions of educational administration

6.     Management and diffe rent factors involved in manage ment

7.      Approaches of Educational Administration, Management and Governance

8.      Summary

 

 

1.    Introduction

Educational administration is a process that includes the combined operation through which a country is maintained in good working conditions. It is a process of utilizing appropriate material in such a way as to promote effectively the development of human qualities. It includes all those techniques and procedures employed in operating the educational organization in accordance with established policies. It is the totality of resources which are made available and made effective for accomplishing the purpose of an enterprise.

  Educational administration includes functions like planning, organizing, financing, directing, supervising, inspecting and evaluation. It is also concerned with elements like setting up of goals of education, review, feedback and innovation.

 

1.1 DEFINITIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

According to Graham Balfaur, Educational administration enables the right pupils to receive the right education from the right teachers, at a cost within the means of the state under conditions which will enable the pupils to profit by their training.

According to R. Mort, Educational administration is the influencing of one group of human beings, the pupils, to grow towards defined objectives utilizing a second group of human being, the teachers as age nts, and operating in a setting of a third group of public, variously concerned both with objective and with means used to achieve them.

According to Yearbook of National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE), Educational Administration is a social statesmanship which guides educational activities, plan, programmes and facilities and provides leadership in a long term but broad social perspective.

Stephen I. Knezevich describes educational administration as a process concerned with creating, maintaining, stimulating and unifying the energies within an educational institution towards realization of predetermined objectives.

 

 

2. Learning Outcomes

At the end of this unit, you will be able to:

  •  Explain the meaning/concept of Educational Administration, Management and Governance.
  •  Discuss the Common features of educational administration.
  •  Discuss the functions of Educational Administration.
  •  Discuss the meaning of Educational Management and Governance.
  • Explain the different approaches of Educational Administration Management and Governance.

3. COMMON FEATURES OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

The common features of educational administration are:

  1. Fulfillment of the goals of organization.
  2. Making use of other peoples in the fulfillment of these goals.
  3. Providing suitable conditions for work and raising the morale of the workers on the job.
  4. Building into one’s own organization the provision for innovation for changes and for development.
  5. It is humanistic and reformist in its approach.
  6. Its major objective is to built the personality, individual, his needs and his quest for perfection are glorification.
  7. It help in enabling the individuals understanding that crime is evil.
  8. It is not merely the political philosophy, but the psychology, ethics, sociology and history which determine the educational processes or procedures.
  9. Educational administration proceeds by taking individuals as a unit.
  10. Educational administration is more concerned with the inner development of human personality.
  11. Educational administration tries to make an individual a moral and cultural person.
  12. Educational administration believes in experimentation.

4.  PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

1.) Principle of sharing responsibility: John Dewey, the famous American Philosopher, has defined democracy as sharing of experiences. A democratic head shares his responsibility with others. His belief is in the decentralization of power. It enables the leader and the followers to have good mental health.

2.) Principle of equality: Democracy demands equality of opportunity to all. All are equal in the eyes of common man. A democratic head does not considers himself aloof from others. He feels as if he was one social being in an inseparable unity of the same social structures.

3.) Principle of freedom: It is one of the unique principle of democracy. The democratic head gives full freedom to the staff so that ma y work according to there will.

4.) Principle of co-ope ration: The running of a school is not one man’s job. It needs combination of many hands and heads. Every member of the school should fully co-operate with the colleagues And with head of the institution.

5.) Principle of justice: Democratic administration demands full justice on part of the headmaster of the school. The democratic administration will be successful only if the headmaster does justice to one and all. In the democratic administration all are treated alike and get due Importance.

6.) Principle of recognition of individual worth: In democratic administration, the head shows equality to all. He comes closer to his followers and tries to understand their capability. Quality or merit of eac h individual is well recognized by him.

7.)  Principle of leadership: Democratic administration needs leadership at different levels. The school administration must possess the qualities of leadership so that others may also follow him. He should inspire, direct, guide and lead the staff, the students, the parents and the community as well.

8.) Principle of democratic Philosophy: A set philosophies behind every working ensures its success. In a democratic set up of life, a democratic philosophy of the head will make the institution function smoothly and effectively.

9.) Principle of flexibility: A democratic head of institution believes in the principle of flexibility. He is ever ready to accommodate other in the wider interest of the institution.

10.) Principle of efficiency: The fact however remains that all people are not capable of doing the same job with equal efficiency. Only some people can do that job in the best way.

11.) Principle of optimis m: School administrator should be fundamentally optimistic in his outlook and constructive in his policies and procedures.. He should have full faith in the efficiency of his programmes.

12.) Principle of professional growth: The success of the administrator depends to a large extent on the efficiency of his colleagues and subordinates. Therefore, he should be sincerely interested in the professional growth of his staff in order that they may be able to discharge their duties successfully.

13.) Principle of relative value: All decision should be made on the basis of relative values. The betterment of the school or students should be the most important determining factors

 

 

5. FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Educational administration is expected to perform following functions:

  1. Educational administration defines the arms and purpose of education.
  2. Educational administration frames policies.
  3. Educational administration lays down the structure of the organization.
  4. Educational administration prescribes the duties a nd responsibility of the positions in the organization.
  5. Educational administration prescribe the power and the authority of the position of the organization.
  6. Educational administration provides finance and other material resources.
  7. Educational administration plans and operates an effective educational programme.
  8. Educational administration provides the personnel necessary to run the enterprise smoothly and effectively.
  9. Educational administration lays down qualitative and quantitative standards of performance for the personnel.
  10. Educational administration provides good professional leadership.
  11. Educational administration stimulates and energizes the worker’s efforts andmaintains their continuous development.
  12. Educational administration evaluates the total outcome in relation to the established policies, aims and norms.
  13. Educational administration integrates all the forces acting in the field of education.

6.  Management and different factors involved in management

   It is the basic integrating process of organizational activity which surrounds our daily life. Management involves many good factors. However some of them are very experimental and need to be understood in proper perspective in order to make management effective functional and ever progressing and strong. In the present era, the emphasis on management is increasing so as to get dignified and effective results out of the educational process.

 

 

1.)  GOAL – Some of the goals of education such as physical, social, e motional and spiritual development, i.e. all round harmonious development of the personality, may be common for all the societies of the world. However, some goals may be different for different nations.

 

 

2.) RESOURCES – Even when it is a fact that school management is to deal with different types of resources, i.e. human resources, physical resources, abstract resources, financial and community resources like museum, zoo etc. it needs to be ensured that maximum utilization of these is achieved. These resources, which in themselves do not carry any meanings, are to be made meaningful by the management, so as to be useful for the students in their proper utilization at work.

 

3.) CO-ORDINATION – One very important function which management is to perform in the educational process is to co-ordinate the functioning of different activities in the institution in such a way that utilization of their functioning provides maximum utility to the students, staff and management.

 

4.) CONTROLLING – In order to provide beneficial services to the student and community a dignified control is must. In order to create such a social set up, the management of all the levels should work in a perfect disciplined order. The type of control reflects the type of management.

 

5.) DIRECTION  –  The  management  fixes  the  aims,  which  are  generally contained in the ‘Motto’ of the institution. Which serves as the direction for the institution in the good management. The direction should be clear and followed in sportsman’s spirit in the institution.

 

6.) PLANNING – Planning is one of the formal duties of the management of an institution. Planning is always done in advance in such a way that all the things happen in a system and in a systematic way. Planning means leading beforehand, how things are to be done and why it should be done in that way. In order to make the school activities effective meaningful and successful, we need effective planning in the following areas:

    a) Financing

b)  Staffing

c) Resources

d) Motivation

e) Development

f) Supervision

g) Evaluation

 

 

7.) MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Even when the above factors were kept in view, the monitoring part becomes of greater significance. Poor monitoring leads to the wastage of resources and poor results. If monitoring is of good quality much of the wastage is controlled and maximum utilization is got out of it. No doubt supervision is important but evaluation is more important than it, at all the stages of the activity. It is better to carry out periodic evaluation to know the level of success of an activity and to improve upon the weakness and drawbacks and the negative and positive points and to improve upon the situation.

 

  8.) OTHER BENEFITS – Management improves efficiency and skill, it saves time. It improves human relations. It economise resources. It improves human relations. It decreases types and scopes of confusion and it increase the confidence of the manager and others who participate in running of institutions.

 

 

7. APPROACHES OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION, MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE

 

1.) Social Demand Approach

   This approach was used in the Robbins Committee Report on Higher Education in Britain. In India too, this approach is a popular one while opening new schools and colleges in particular. In this approach method the following steps are involved:

  • To estimate the proportion of students completing school education and are likely to enter into higher education.
  • To estimate how many of these successful school leaving students actually apply for admission in colleges.
  • To determine how many of the applicants got admission to higher education.
  • To determine the length and duration of their study.

  Thus, the major issue involved in this approach is to forecast future demands for seats keeping in mind social and educational trends as well as demographic changes. The underlying assumption in this approach is that expansion of education is beneficial to the economy and thus, additional expenditure on education would not create a heavy burden, which would be unbearable.

This approach is more prevalent in those societies which favour traditional cultural values, where decisions are taken on the basis of public opinions (in a fragile polity and sometimes in a democracy) and in societies where the social environment is generally pessimistic in nature.

The approach is based on currently expressed preferences and does not take into account public expenditure on education. Also, it sometimes lead to a mismatch between the output of higher education and the demands of the economy.

 

2.) Social Justice Approach

This approach emphasizes justice to the disadvantaged sections of society and is based on Article 45 of the Indian Constitution. This approach is aimed at making special provisions for the socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged communities for a longer duration. This includes opening Ashram schools for tribal areas, special concessions and scholarships, incentives and relaxation.

 

  3.) Rate of Returns Approach

According to this approach, investment in education should take place in such a way that the returns from the investment are equal to the returns from other kinds of investment of capital, e.g. investment in industry. This principle is known as ‘equi- marginal returns’ in economic theory and could be extended to educational sector.

This approach treats education as an investment in human capital and uses rate of returns as a criterion in allocation of financial resources. The approach implies that if the rate of return is low, expenditure on education should be curtailed.

However, in reality, it is difficult to apply this approach to education due to problems associated with measuring rate of returns in education.

An educated person’s earnings or rate of returns depend upon his/her innate intelligence, parental socio-economic status, motivation and aspirations. Hence, it is not easy to attribute the rate of returns only to education acquired. Hence, this approach is least frequently applied to education.

 

 

4.) Manpower Planning Approach

In this method, the general demand and the capacity of supp ly of human resources in different streams and at different levels of the educational sector are estimated.

The approach asserts that the system of education produces the right quality of human resources with desirable knowledge, attitudes and skills in the right numbers and thus, education is directly linked with economic development. The application of the manpower planning approach depends on these factors:

  • An appraisal and analysis of the existing employment conditions and the system of education.
  • Planning the system of education.
  • Using the financial resources (which are limited) in an optimum way so as to fulfill the demands of the employment sector without incurring wastage on account of unemployment.
  • Making an appraisal of the number of students enrolled, the number of existing teachers and their qualifications, enrolment in teacher education institutions (availability of future teachers), as well as the existing number of school buildings, equipments, infrastructure and other facilities.
  • The requirements of the employers regarding occupational and/ or professional qualifications for employees, their levels of training and abilities should also be assessed.

   The manpower planning approach takes note of the fact that the teaching profession requires approximately 60% of the highly qualified human resources of a country which competes with the demand for manpower in other economic sectors.

A detailed projection of the demand for human resources is difficult due to the uncertainty of productivity trends. Some developed countries such as Norway, France and Sweden estimate their future manpower needs so as to meet the

demands of the economy whereas others such as Great Britain estimate the numbers to be educated on the basis of students’ de mands.

 

Summary

Educational administration is the study and practice of managing the resources, task and communication involved in running school educational administration is a discipline within the study of education that examines the administrative theory and practice of education in general and educational institutions and educators in particular. Educational administration has a vast area of operation ranging from planning to budgeting in an effort to make the educational process purposive and functional. The tools for this should be effective, systematic and have a definite purpose. It focuses upon the attitude towards work and adopts practical measures to ensure that the system of work functions efficiently and assist in the achievement of the aims of education thus benefiting the learners who are the main stakeholders in the educational system.

Educational administration based on different principles like sharing responsibility, principle of equality, principle of freedom, principle of recognition of individual worth and principle of professional growth. It frames policies and lay down the structure of organization. Educational management improves the efficiency and skill of the educational institution. It economises resources. It improves human relationship.

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References

  • Sodhi, T.S. and Suri, A. (2000) Management of School Education, Bawa Publications, Patiala.
  • Narain, I., Pande K.C. and Sharma, M.L. (1996) Panchayati Raj and Educational Administration, Aalekh Publishers, Jaipur

  Web links

  • http;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Educational_administrationehe.osu.edu/educa tional-studies/educational-administration/
  • www.usd.edu/education/educational-administrationeaq.sagepub.com/