32 Emerging issues and problems of educational administration

Dr. Mandeep Kaur

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

1.  Introduction

 

2.  Learning outcomes

 

3.  Emerging issues and problems in educational administration

 

3.1 Administrative problems of primary education

 

3.2 Administrative problems of secondary education

 

3.3 Administrative problems of higher education

 

3.4 Administrative problems of technical education

 

4. General proble ms of educational administration

 

1. INTRODUCTION

The central and the state governments have joint responsibility for education, with freedom for the state governments to organise education within the national framework of education. Educational policy planning is under the overall charge of the central Ministry of Human Resource Development which includes the Department of Elementary Education and Literacy and the Department of Secondary and Higher Education. The Ministry is guided by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) which is the national level advisory body. The education ministers of all the different states are members of the board. The constitutional provision in India favours decentralisation, yet the educational administration here is a mixture of centralisation and decentralisation. Hence, there is a complete lack of coordination in the different spheres of education. Therefore, educational administration is devoid of its promptness. No unit of educational administration is fulfilling its obligations. Major issues and problems in educational administration can be categorised according to various levels at which education is imparted in India.

 

2.  LEARNING OUTCOMES

  • To develop an understanding of the emerging issues and problems of educational administration in India at primary education level.
  • To develop an understanding of the emerging issues and problems of educational administration in India at secondary education level.
  • To develop an understanding of the emerging issues and problems of educational administration in India at university education level.
  • To develop an understanding of the emerging issues and problems of educational administration in India at technical education level.

 

3. EMERGING ISSUES AND PROBLEMS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Major issues and problems in educational administration according to various levels at which education is imparted in India are:

 

I)  Administrative problems of primary education

 

II)  Administrative problems of secondary education

 

III)   Administrative problems of higher education IV) Administrative problems of technical education

 

3.1 Administrative problems of Primary Education

(1) Problems of Universalisation:

 

(i) Faulty Policy of Government: Conversion of large number of existing primary schools into basic schools caused financial problems while implementation.

 

(ii) Political Difficulties: So far, the Government of India has not been able to devote its full attention towards education due to problems of food, of inimical neighbours, the problem of Kashmir, the problem of linguistic states, etc.

 

(iii) Faulty Administration of Education: In most of the states, the responsibility of universal primary education is on the Block authorities, Municipalities and Educational Districts. The progress of expansion of primary education gets slow because of the indifference and incapability of these institutions.

 

(iv) Dearth of Money: Income of the local institutions responsible for primary education is so much limited that they are totally incapable of meeting the expenditure of compulsory education.

 

(v) Establishment and School Buildings: The Third and Fourth All India Educational Surveys indicate that even now there are lakhs of villages and habitations without schools due to non-availability of funds.

 

(vi) Natural Obstacles: The village and small habitations in areas of Himalayan regions, Kashmir, Garhwal, Almora with less population are situated distances apart. So, also the desert areas in Rajasthan, the dense forest areas in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Assam and many Southern States create problems for expected enrollment. These are very difficult areas due to lack of communication, transport, education and school organisation.

 

(2) Lack of physical facilities: The most fundamental problem in facilities management is lack of policy guidelines for infrastructural development in schools. The children enrolled for free and compulsory education are deprived of basic necessities such as adequate classrooms, staff offices, laboratories and workshops, libraries, etc. This situation arises because the central, state and local Governments have failed to implement policy directives on minimum standards in relation to school facilities. Although, the Supreme Court had directed the centre and state governments to provide basic infrastructure, including drinking water and toilet facility in all the schools, still, there are many schools which lack in physical facilities.

 

(3)   Mid-day meal: Mid-day meal scheme was started to lure children to come to school and improve enrollment with the help of free food. Improper food preparation and unhygienic conditions have caused deaths of children and making many of them fall ill. Other issues range from delayed payments, cooks not receiving pay and food not being delivered or being wasted. There is even embezzlement of money by way of fake enrollments. It is also a difficult challenge to deliver food to rural areas. Roads are not paved and the infrastructure is lacking.

 

The officials submit reports sitting at their tables without having visited schools. Caste based discrimination continues to occur in the serving of food. The grievance redressal mechanism for the complaints of mid day meal scheme is not known to the parents.

 

(4) One Teacher School: The job of teaching is far more complex in remotely located schools in comparison to urban schools due to poor connectivity, lack of interaction with peer group of teachers and lack of need-based training to teachers coupled with inadequate and poor quality of school facilities. A large number of single teachers handle multi- grade and diverse age- group children in classroom situation.

 

(5) Wastage and Stagnation: It is another major problem and a great obstacle in the way of universalisation of elementary education. This is due to the lack of educational atmosphere, undesirable environment, lack of devoted teachers, poor economic conditions of parents, absence of proper equipment, etc. This has led to a steep increase in the dropout rate of students.

 

3.2 Administrative problems of Secondary Education

(1) Recruitment: Recruitment is frequently neither systematic nor rigorous and does not draw a sufficient number of potential and qualified teachers to the profession, either from the pool of secondary leavers or from older people with relevant academic backgrounds. In response to insufficient number of teachers, inefficient deployment practices, or scarcity of funds, contract teachers are often hired for secondary teaching and paid through school or community fees. Contract teachers have a less stable source of remuneration, creating issues of absenteeism and retention that the schools themselves must address.

 

(2)  Vocationalisation: The vocational aim laid out by Indian Education Commission stands unachieved due to the following reasons:

i)   Lack of sufficient number of learning and training infrastructure.

 

ii)    Lack of experienced and qualified teachers to train students on vocational skills.

 

iii)    In India, no specific education or training is being imparted to vocational education teachers.

 

iv)  Poor quality of training which is not in line with industry needs.

 

v)   No clear policy or system of vocational education leading to certification / degrees presently available for the unorganised / informal sector. No Credit System has been formulated for the same.

 

(3)  Finance: The establishment of new secondary schools is essential for meeting the educational needs of the increasing student population. While India has pursued the drive towards universal elementary education, since 2000 the share of investment financing for secondary education has declined significantly.

 

(4)    Nationalist versus private enterprise: Parents value good quality education and are willing to pay for it. Poor quality of education in government schools is considered as a major reason for the rapid growth in the number of private schools. In a private school, the teachers are accountable to the manager (who can fire them),

and through him or her, to the parents (who can withdraw their children). In a government school, the chain of accountability is much weaker, as teachers have a permanent job with salaries and promotions unrelated to their performance.

 

(5)  Lack of physical and learning resources: Due to lack of teaching and learning aids in schools, teachers face many problems during teaching process. Some schools even do not have basic aids such as boards and books. Some schools do not have classrooms and library. There are no playgrounds for the physical development of students. This situation has created more problems for teachers as they cannot provide the students wider opportunities for learning and development. In these conditions teachers fail to create meaningful learning environment in schools.

 

(6) Lack of supervision: It has been found that there is a poor concept of supervision in our schools. In our country the process of supervision is characterised with the notion of inspection. Supervisors create fear during the process of supervision in the minds of teachers. This trend has created mistrust and reluctance among the teachers. The supervisors instead of providing constructive feedback, dictate to the teachers and hence no improvement takes place.

 

(7) Lack of coordination: The problem of coordination has emerged due to weak communication between the policy makers, staff, parents and the community. The state of poor coordination in the system has promoted misunderstanding among the stakeholders. Teachers remain at the receiving end in all areas, be it making of the curriculum or any other policy. The teachers participate only in the implementation not in the development part. There is even lack of coordination between teachers and principals which has snubbed any discussion on mutual problems faced by the teachers in schools.

 

3.3 Administrative problems of Unive rsity Education

  1. Autonomy:  The  main  problem  in  some  of  our  universities  is  that  of autonomy and the intrusion of politics. The universities have direct relation with the chancellor and the legislature but ministers also poke their nose in some matters. Since universities enjoy legal positions, political interests in them become inevitable, and it is not possible altogether to dismiss the political interest. This largely affects the effective functioning of higher education institutes.

   2. Admission: Higher education is a costly affair. Due to poor economic conditions of the country, it is not possible to provide higher education to all.

 

   No definite admission rules, inadequate provision for enabling talented but economically weaker students to pursue their studies on a whole time basis, unsatisfactory provision for the private candidates for encouraging self study, ineffective imposition of restriction in the establishment of new institutions, careless planning and location of new institutions, and non-adoption of the policy of selective admission on the basis of merit keeping in view of the weaker sections.

 

3. Student’s unrest: The bulk of students are interested only in acquiring the label of a degree for getting higher social status in the society after spending a stipulated period. In order to improve the living and working conditions of student community, U.G.C. has been giving financial assistance for the construction of suitable residential halls, non-resident student centres, health centres, hobby workshops etc., yet it is most unfo rtunate that student indiscipline has been increasing in volume. Sometimes, the ugly incidents and outburst of student frenzy, vitiate the academic atmosphere of the universities causing grave concern to educationists, parents and others interested in student welfare.

 

4. Affiliated Colleges: It is on the standards of affiliated colleges on which the standards of higher education ultimately depend. Any programme for improvement of higher education, therefore, will have to concentrate on the affiliated colleges. The problem of affiliation has received some attention in the Five Year Plans and by the U.G.C., but it is very little as compared to its magnitude. The quality of education in these colleges is inadequate due to improper planning and location of affiliated colleges, no improvement in the existing system of affiliation and no revision of the system grants- in-aid of the state governments.

 

5. Student’s participation in different administrative bodies of the university: Political corruption has polluted the sources of power and authority and consequently degraded the quality of decisions taken by the concerned authorities. Many groups of students influenced by the political parties tend to create problems for the administration. Some of the students use this occasion to criticise others based on their personal rivalries. Due to this, the universities have become advertisers for certain brand of politics within the campus and influence students through meetings and campaigns.

 

6.Educated Unemployme nt: The incidence of unemployment among educated persons has been increasing over the last few years. Now the question arises where to accommodate this influx of educated persons that stream out from universities all over the country. If properly harnessed the manpower should prove to be an asset and not a liability. People at the helm of affairs must pay considerable attention to this aspect of the problem. No serious attempt has so far been made to relate education to manpower planning, although this is one of the recommendations of Kothari Commission.

 

7. Finance: Declining public expenditure in the education sector, increasing cost per student without the support from credit markets, and dominance of private sector in higher education worsens the problem of finance in higher education. While on one hand, we argue that Government of India should play a pivotal role in financing higher education, on the other hand, heavy public subsidisation of higher education could lead to unequal distribution of welfare, since public expenditure on higher education is made out of general taxes.

 

3.4 Administrative problems of Technical Education

  1. Problem of co-ordination: A major problem of the current technical and vocational education environment is its fragmentation and the uncoordinated management and administration of each sub-system i.e. government, industry and educational institutions. There is lack of an institutional framework to organise, articulate, integrate, regulate and ensure the quality of training interventions and programs.
  2. Shortage of Institutions: Only a few institutions impart technical education and the existing number fails to cope with the needs of the increasing population. There is need for its constant expansion and improveme nt. In order to realise this goal, co-operation of state and central government is of great importance.
  3.   Poor technical knowledge of administrators: The administrators are responsible for industrialisation but their lack of knowledge of technical engineering subjects does not allow them to succeed in achieving the targets of industrialisation. The government and the Directorate of technical education can resolve this administrative difficulty.

 

3.5 General Proble ms of Educational Administration

  1. Limitations of State Machinery: The work load of Director of Education and District Inspector of Schools is so heavy that they cannot bear it well. In some states there are separate posts of Director of Primary Education and Director of Secondary Education, but in others there is only one post. Various suggestions were given by Secondary Education Commission and Kothari Commission to solve such problems but no concrete steps have been taken in this direction.

   2. Disadvantages of the constitutional division:

The division is theoretical and ambiguous. Even after the division, the three units: Central government, State government, Local government are interdependent. There is no clarity of their programmes. There is inaccurate implementation of plans concerning the educational development and expansion and regarding starting up of various programmes. There exists lack of cooperation amongst them which has created many obstacles in the educational organisation.

 

3. Vested inte rests of Private Manage ments: India is presently suffering from the problem of scarcity of resources and artificial scarcity created by affluent and powerful persons to fulfil their vested interests. The failure of people connected with the management of the schools and their vested interests is affecting the teachers as well as increasing educational expenditures which affects the students.

 

4. Insufficient sense of responsibility by authorities: District inspectors are more active to their rights connected with their posts and their administrative powers than to their responsibility. Hence, they fail to behave properly with their subordinates and other capable and experienced persons. They do not get necessary help and co-operation from them. Their subordinate officers and employees also lack sincerity and proper behaviour. The attitude of educational officers is authoritative and critical instead of co-operative and helpful in matter of inspection of schools and its problems. So they do not help in solving problems.

 

5. Less efforts of Co-ordination: The Indian central government intends to shift the burden on state governments on the pretext of constitutional provisions. The agencies of co-operation or contact among the state governments through which uniformity can be maintained are less effective. Though after the establishment of regulatory bodies like UGC and different boards of education many of such problems have been solved, still the problem of co-ordination has not been uprooted.

 

6. Inhumaneness of Indian authorities: Educational administration envisages a different kind of method and rules from that of general administration but in our country same kind of rules are being used for all the systems without paying any attention to its practical aspect. Any officer of Indian Civil Service is sent to education ministry or education department. The tendency of authoritarianism and illiberality of rules create a sort of double inhumaneness.

 

7. Problem of Red-Tapism: Educational programmes need to keep changing with the changing demands of the society. The changed programmes should be implemented even more rapidly. The present education system suffers from red-tapism. The money sanctioned in various plans was never utilised fully. Many important programmes remained enclosed in the departmental files at one stage or the other and finally the money was either spent on some other work or returned as such.

 

8. Leadership: Problems in educational administration stem from lack of leadership. School administration officials are usually former teachers or principals who have worked hard to qualify for their positions and have many years of experience. But experience does not necessarily qualify one to be a leader. Educational administrators must adhere to policies, even if they do not personally agree with them. Good leaders compromise without sacrificing the integrity of the system.

 

9. Communication: Confusion results when administrators do not have regular and open lines of communication with their teaching staff or with their superiors. Because of overwhelming responsibilities, principals tend to become less accessible, which leads to less face-to-face interaction, which is important for the teachers and students. Instead, issues usually are addressed in general meetings because of time constraints.

 

10. Disconnect: The teacher-student relationship is a closed one that is nurtured by everyday interaction. A disconnect can result when a similar level of familiarity between teachers, principals, and district leaders is not maintained. This causes resentfulness on the part of teachers, who perceive a lack of concern and distorted priorities on the part of their superiors. When teachers become indignant, their performance suffers along with student achievement.

 

11. Partiality: A major problem can occur in schools when certain teachers, parents or community leaders are shown favouritism based on their degree of influence or relationships with administrators. An effective administrator will make decisions based upon what is deemed to be best for the student and will stand firm in her position as advocate for children.

  1. Politics: In schools that have elected leaders and school boards, competition and fierce ambition can cause a problem when these concerns override the main purpose of education. Principals who prefer one candidate over another may try to persuade teachers to be like- minded. Some candidates may use low test scores and high dropout rates as weapons to force current leaders out of their positions, thereby casting the district into a negative light. If communities do not see their educational leader as a person of integrity, the motivation to participate in school improvement projects is diminished, thereby negatively affecting the future of their children’s education.

 

SUMMARY

This module discusses about the emerging problems of educational administration at various levels. Educational institutes are the preparation grounds for the progress of a nation. Educational administration is responsible for the development and expansion of different educational systems and to keep track of the changing demands of the city. Proper regulation and channelisation can increase the utility of education for the people. The various administrative problems at different levels of education need immediate attention. The appointments at important posts of the education department should be according to the qualifications of people. Every education officer appointed should have the ability of preparing budget, planning and guidance, organisation, reporting, administration and coordination.

 

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