EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION - Meaning, AUTHORITARIAN AND DEMOCRATIC EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT

1.1 MEANING AND DEFINITIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

The world ‘administration* has been derived from the Latin word ‘minister* which means, ‘service rendered to others for their welfare*.

The classical and medieval meanings of the terra ‘administration were - perform, take charge of or accomplish’. The recent dictionary defines it as direction or management.

The term ‘Educational Administration* is very comprehensive. It is concerned with the formulation, execution and appraisal of educational policies.

A school comes into being through the process of organising. Then comes its administration. Running or functioning of the school is the job of the head of tire institution. 'This does not mean that only the Head and none else is responsible for adminisiriition. In fact, administration is a job of many minds and many heads. All combined into one. The Head of the institution is the leader who is to make all other follow him. Thus educational administration is more or less a co-operative undertaking and in the language of economic it is a ‘Non profit making enterprise’.

Education administration has been defined variously. Some of the important definitions are given below :

American Association of School Administration describes administration as “the total of the processes through which appropriate human and material resources are made available and made effective for accomplishing the purpose of an enterprise.”

Campbelll, Corably and Ramesyer observe in Introduction to Educational Administration that the educational administration “consists of facilitating the development of goals and policies basic to teaching and learning, stimulating the development of  appropriate programmes for teaching and learning and procuring and managing personnel and material to implement teaching and learning.”

Dictionary of Education by Good defines educational administration as “All those techniques and procedures employed in operating the educational organisation in accordance with established policies is defined as administration.”

Grayson Kefauner has observed in The Forty Fifth Year Book of as, “Educational administration approaches statemanship when there are clearly formulated long term policies and objectives, and when day-to-day activities and problems are dealt with under the guidance of the perspective given by such long - term policies .”

According to National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) “Educational Administration is a social statemanship which guides educational activities, plans, programmes mid facilities, and provides leadership in a long-term but broad social perspective.”

Educational Administration has been defined by R. Mort as, “ the influencing of one group of human beings, the pupils, to grow towards defined objectives, utilising a second group of human beings, the teachers, as agents; and operating in a setting of a third group of public, variously concerned both with objectives and with means used to achieve them.”

Russell T. Gregg, in an article on Administraion in Encyclopedia of Educational Research writes, “Educational Administration is the process of utilising expropriate materials in such a way as to promote effectively the development of human qualities. It is concerned not only with the development of children and youth, but also with the growth of adults and particularly with the growth of school personnel.”

According to Samuel Mathai, “Educational Administration presumably means the combined operation of a large number of persons whereby the whole fabric of education in the country is maintained in good working condition. An administration is a person who has a part to play in running an institution. He is responsible servant whose duties may include both giving orders and carrying out orders.”

The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education (1988) edited by Asa S. Knowles and other reads “Educational Administration, in general, is concerned with the management of state and local school systems and with local school attendance units. Identified with the executive branch of government, educational administration is treated usually as a field of study in it self and not as a part of public administration. A more sophisticated definition of educational administration is, “A social process concerned with creating, maintaining, stimulating, controlling and unifying, formally and informally organized human and material energy within a unified system designed to accomplish predetermined (educational ) objectives ( Knezevich, 1969).

The Encyclopedia of Education (1971) by IEEC. Deighton States, “Educational Administration is concerned with the overall direction and support of the schools. It includes the immediate leadership of the school principal and the specialised skills of the business manager, curriculum co-ordinator, and other staff specialists, all under the general supervision of the superintendent. The concept of administration as a profession evolved with the expansion of educational enterprise during the late nineteenth century.”

“Administration is justified only to the extent that it contributes to the capacity of organisation to fulfil its primary mission. In the field of education, administration is justified only as it contributes to the capacity of the school to help children and youth to grow toward responsible boyhood.

- Clsvence A., Nowell (1978).

According to the Concies Dictionary of Education ( 1982 ), “Administration includes Management, Organisation, Operation and Supervision of an educational institution. Usually includes all institutional functions other than teaching ”

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 the predetermined objectives ”

Will French, Hull and Dodds compare administration to a lens that brings everything about die school into focus for community, faculty and students. If it is a poor lens, the image is fuzzy and obscure, and no one in the school or community gets a clear picture of what the school is trying to go. If it is a good lens, the school becomes a clear cut and vivid projection of the ideals and ideas that all hoped to bring into being.

Educational Administration is a process that includes the combined operation of a large number of persons whereby the whole fabric of education in the country is maintained in good working condition. It is the process of utilising appropriate materials 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 organisation in accordance with established policies.

Educational Aministration means the totality of the process through which appropriate human and material resources are emade available and made effective for accomplishing the purpose of an 'enterprise.

SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Education is one of the hugest enterprises undertaken for the purpose of the development and growth of the individual and to meet the needs of Society. It involves the activity of a large number of people - students, teachers, parents and the public. For such a big enterprise we need a sound machinery to run it and effective principles to secure efficiency. There is need for the co-operative activity of all participants in the educative process for the achievement of its goals. It is the task of administration to set up such machinery and make it work smoothly and effectively. The scope of educational administration therefore extends to a vast area and a large variety of activities. We shall to understand the scope of educational administration taking cue from business and industry.

Qrdway Tead has laid down the scope of general administration under five areas, viz, Production, Assuring public use, Finance and Accounting, Personnel, and Coordination. Applying these five areas to the fields of education we can try down the scope of educational administration:

1. Production refers to social activity of work for which an organisation is set up. In education it means realization of the goals of education which have been set up by society. Educational Administration has therefore to interpret the aims of education to the educational workers so that they may shape the final product of education (the achievement of the pupils) in the desired form and shape.

2. Assuring public use means that the activity and the product of the efforts of the organisation, the goals and services produced, must be such that they are acceptable of use and benefit to the public, because it is for this that the public has set up the organisation. It is the business of educational administration to define the operations needed, to make them known and to promote them so that the final educational product is good for public and the society.

3. Finance and accounting refers to the receipt and disbursement of money invested in the activities of the organisation. Educational administration is also concerned with receiving and spending money necessary for the operation and activities of the educational machinery. It should record and measure the monetary and other resources invested in the educational enterprise and also evaluate the inputs and outputs.

4. Personnel is the framing and operation of policies and procedures for recruitment of workers and maintenance of good-will and personal relationships among them in order to ensure fullest interest, cooperation, moral and loyalty of all the persons working in the organisation. This is specially important for the educational enterprise where the whole work is centred round the impact of one type of human beings, the teachers, upon another type of human beings, the students. The scope of educational administration, therefore, spreads over the personnel.

5. Coordination is an important activity of educational administration. It ensures the close inter-relation and integration of all the functional activities of the organisation such as personnel, finance and production of desired results. Such integration has to be brought about not only in the structure of the organisation but also of the attitudes and efforts of the workers, so that all of them pull together in the direction of the desired goals and achieve them.

Sears has pointed out the scope of administration more specifically in relation to education as follows:

1- Establishing educational purpose, by expressing them in the form of aims and the programme of work in order to accomplish them, i.e., laying oat the work of the organisation.

2. Provision and development of the personnel and necessary financees, housing; materials and facilities for carrying out the work of the organisation, i.e., mobilising resources of men and materials for the realisation of the aims of education.

3. Laying down procedures and techniques for the performance of the work and the policies and plans to guide the work, i.e., the curriculum and methods of teaching and supervision.

4. Defining the nature and procedure of use of authority (legal, official and personal) and control (scientific and democratic) by which the administrative process will operate.

5. Deciding the nature of aims and procedures by which the administrative process will operate.

6. Deciding the mechanism (structure and relationships) by which authority and power are applied in the administrative process.

From the above discussion we find that the scope of educational administration is very wide and extends over many fields. When the process starts working numerous problems arise and have to be solved on the basis of a broad social perspective and the nation’s way of life. In view of the innumerable activities that have to be performed by educational administration its scope may be broadly classified and delineated under the following areas:

1. Legal Structure refers to the laws that have to be passed and rules and regulations have to be framed in order to determine the agencies of education, their types, powers and standards of educational institutions to be run by them, to prescribe authority end control, to fix up responsibility and obligations, to decide the question of decentralisation of management and to set up organisational and administrative machinery.

2. Pupils. Children are the centre of the educational enterprise. It is for them that the entire process of education and its constituents exist. It is therefore necessary to determine the individual and social purposes and procedures of their education in accordance with their needs, interests and capacities and the demands of society. Rules far their admission, promotion, discipline, etc., have to be framed and implemented.

3. Personnel. To run educational activities necessary and adequate man-power has to be found and engaged. Personnel plays the key-role in education. This is the fly-wheel or the driving force of the educational machinery. Proper attention has to be paid to the workers. Men and women have to be selected, recruited and trained and their qualifications and standards have to be prescribed. Good service conditions like attractive salaries, security of tenure, welfare service and retirement benefits have to be offered to bring in the best available talent. Schemes for their direction, guidance and supervision have to be drawn up. Last but not the least, a good and effective programme for the workers’ continuous development and professional progress through reorientation and in-service education has to be launched.

4. Finance is an important area which includes problems of income and expenditure and their accounting and auditing. Decisions have to be taken about the sharing of the cost of education by the centre and the States and the Local Bodies. The policy of taxation and prescribing fees, etc., has to be formulated. Rules and regulations have to be framed for budgeting, spending and controlling of funds and resources.

5. Curriculum is the means of achieving the goals of education. Educational administration has to deal with the problem of curriculum construction and its day to day development. It has also to look after the continuous evaluation and progressive improvement of the educational programme which are urgently called for in view of the constantly going on scientific, technological and social changes. Administration has to pay close attention to the teaching-learning programmes and processes and also to other instructional material. Important pupil services, such as health and recreation and psychological services of testing and records, guidance and t counselling and co-curricular activities, etc., have to be organised and administered for the benefit of the young.

6. Physical Facilities comprise the area dealing with the problem of provision and maintenance of the school plant equipment and supplies, their production, purchase, upkeep and accounting.

7. Public Relation. Education is a social enterprise run with the cooperation of students, teachers, parents and the community. Educational administration has to make each of them contribute its due share to the success of the enterprise. It should, therefore, maintain effective public relations. This involves maintenance of records, issuing periodical reports, information and bulletins about past achievement and future proposals. Administration should encourage community visitation, and secure its participation and cooperation by a process of give and take, i.e., by utilizing community resources and rendering useful services for its welfare.

It is necessary to add a work of caution here. The above list and categorisation are only suggestive and not exclusive. They are not arranged in any priority order, as all of them are equally necessary and important. The analysis has been made only for the sake of convenience of discussion and all the different areas of scope should be viewed with an approach to integration.

FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Administration is the service rendered to the school and society in the task of achieving the educational goals by co-ordinating the efforts of the people engaged in the task. It is the process through which the functions of the school are discharged. Administration has therefore to perform some definite functions. Several attempts have been made to list these functions of which three of them have been noted below:

(1) In the Forty-fifth Year book are mentioned the following functions of educational administration.

1. To delegate authority and responsibility.

2. To strengthen local initiative and local control.

3. To secure the greatest return from the money spent.

4. To secure the goodwill of personnel, public education department and other social agencies and institutions.

5. To implement a democratically determined programme.

6. To determine policies and to implement them.

7. To utilise maximally the special capacities of the personnel and the material resources.

8. To integrate the units concerned with the same problems or areas.

(2) Jeaie B. Sean defines the subject matter of the field of educational administration as activities given below:

1. Establishing educational purpose by expressing them in the form of aims and a program of work to be accomplished, e.g., laying out its work.

2. Development and organisation of a personnel and the necessary finances, housing, materials and facilities for carrying on the work.

3. Procedures and techniques for the performance of tire work, including the policies and the plans to guide it.

4. Nature and use of the authority (legal, scientific, social and personal) by which administration operates.

5. Origin and nature of the aims and processes by which administration operates.

6. Nature of the mechanism by which authority and knowledge are applied in the process of administration.

Of these six items the fast three are related to the practice of administration, while the latter three have with theory or philosophy underlying practices.

(3) Russell T. Gregg describes the administrative process as having seven functions or components: decision making; planning; organizing; communicating; influencing; coordinating; and evaluating.

The researcher feels that a long list of the functions of educational administration can be prepared and yet would remain inexhaustive. And hence the researcher believed that a fruitful exercise would be to classify the functions under some broad categories like purposes, planning, organising, operating and evaluating. These five functions should be looked upon as stages in the administrative process but it must be remembered that they are not isolated activities. They often overlap and always produce results cumulatively.

******

1.3 Authoritarian and Democratic Educational Management

Authoritarian/Autocratic Educational Management

Just like centralized management authoritarian management plays its role. In centralized management the centralization of the power and responsibility of educational management centered in and exercised by, a central power, organisation or agency. It implies that all the policies and programmes are planned, directed by one central agency. Here the central agency may be a person, a group of persons as “core group.” So when the powers and responsibilities center round a particular person or group then the term authoritarian or autocracy comes into limelight.

In this context it will be suffice if will discuss authoritarian/autocratic management where authority and control lies in one person or group or institution. In this management the rights are absolute and supreme and educational management is a state of monopoly. In this type of educational management every aspect of education is controlled by one. And educational administration becomes centralized being dominated by bureaucracy, which controlls through strict administration of laws, rules and regulations.

The business of the staff is to emphasize these laws, rules and central orders and to see that these are properly carried out. The teacher as the real and regular practioner becomes the mouth piece of the central authority having no professional freedom. This type of educational management generally found in totalitarian or unitary states. In this type of states educational management remains in the hand of the head of the educational institution who exercises authority and control in a centralized form. It implies that he directs every action of his teachers and students. He plans all the school activities.

He tells the teachers and students what to think as well as what to do. He takes decision and gives all directions to teachers and students. He thinks himself as an only active agency in the management of every educational programme of the institution. In this type of management ‘I-feelings’ are pre-dominant and ego of one individual prevails.

Democratic educational management:

Now in the modern era democracy is unanimously regarded and accepted “as the way of life.” This is not only applicable in case of a particular nation but also for the entire globe/world. This very statement implies that in every aspect of development the democratic principles, values and ideas must be adhered or accepted. Accordingly in the field of management it must be accepted and implemented.

Being contextual in approach it can be visualized that in the field of education democratic management is highly stressed. In other-words it can be said that democratic educational management is the need of the day for bringing wholesome educational development of every nation. Like other educational managements “authority and control” are also the two basic hallmarks in democratic educational management, which are exercised in decentralized form.

Decentralization refers to the type of management in which control is vested in the agencies or persons ranging from grass-root level to top level. It recognizes the rights of all the agencies or persons who are linked with the educational institution. In this type of educational management ‘we feelings’ prevail in the educational institution with an environment of mutual trust, accompanied by co-operative planning, group discussion, participation of all the staff members and organization of the programme in a joint-venture.

In this management teachers get proper scope for planning, administering, organizing, directing, coordinating, supervising, controlling and evaluating the assignments entrusted upon them. However like democracy in democratic educational management the following principles are highly stressed.

Principles of Democratic Educational Management:

The principles of democratic educational management are:

a. Principle of sharing responsibility:

In the field of democratic educational management everybody who is more or less involved in the process should take the responsibility to share in the work.

b. Principle of Equality:

As equality is the basic hallmark of democracy. It should be treated and accepted in the field of democratic educational management. So all the personnel who are involved in the process should get equal facilities, rights and opportunities in doing their duty.

c. Principle of Freedom:

In the field of democratic educational management every person should be given freedom to do their duty in their own jurisdiction. This will lead to make the educational management of every educational programme successful in democratic perspective.

d. Principle of Co-operation:

In order to make educational management of any educational programme a successful one a greater cooperation should be ensured among different persons involved in the field of educational management.