Blog: School Management - Whither?

A member of the Private Secondary Federation of Managers dared make an incendiary statement out of greed for more admissions in Form 1 in January 2012. The statement ran as follows: School Management - Whither? 'Private colleges are better managed than State Secondary Schools'

My contention is that  this is a cheap publicity stunt for next year. At a time when demography shows a decline of births, the spokesperson bases his ideas of management on primitive criteria because in fact both private schools and state schools show very little of management. Much of what private school managers call 'management' involves discipline imposed on students, on teachers, control of all activities related to curriculum and pedagogy, tight imposition of internal rules relating to absences, attendance and performance. In fact it is the absence of management that strikes us. It is not because a few truants of Regis Chaperon SSS were involved in an aggression that the school is badly managed. Rectors of state schools do not have the control that managers of private schools enjoy. Can a rector of a state school refuse access to a student who carries traces of piercing? The state school rector has no power except to recommend at worst the rustication of a pupil. In fact, rectors in state schools are doing better than they are expected to as far as discipline within the school compound is concerned.

But management should not be contracted into mere caretaker exercise. If we reflect on the type of relationships existing between leader and worker in private schools we shall be dumbfounded by the trauma and the climate of terror that prevails at schools. The teacher is always viewed with suspicion as though he was constantly absconding from his responsibility and seeking a holiday from work. Management is based on a faith in Total Quality People.

Do managers prepare their newly recruited teachers to become the teachers they are expected to be? Every new teacher needs to be assimilated into the profession. This rough unrefined individual is not a teacher. He is not even fit for this particular school which has a vision of its own, an approach to the weak and vulnerable, an attitude to learning. Do managers work within a philosophical framework that defines their school?  Does such a guide exist?

Human resources are the most important instruments of action. Is there a philosophy of human capital development so that teachers may wed the vision of the school and act on the same page as others towards well defined goals? In the absence of such a practice, can we talk of management? That is why relationships in private colleges wither under a cloud of fear, doubt and suspicion. In state schools also there is no such vision that can train teachers to work collaboratively under one umbrella. No one knows what the other is doing and every teacher enjoys the licentious freedom of doing what pleases him. That is why even the best teachers working in private colleges seek the first opportunity in order to enjoy the comfort of a snug corner where each one can bask in the warmth of autonomy. Both suffer from lack of a proper management framework.

What should management mean? It implies planning for incremental development with the consensus of most stakeholders. Where is such a plan available? Nowhere. Let us not say that private schools are better managed. A school is a single body in which different organs function in harmony. In fact private colleges function like the factories of the fifties with one captain and thousand workers who had to suffer from the whims of the owner. It is unfortunate that schools are treated like one's man property. That is why many schools are known in public by the name of the owner of the building. What should the plan captain? The objectives of the institution for pupils and teachers, the strategies to be used to obtain success by defining success criteria, the investment needed to attain the objectives, the names of persons responsible for tasks so that they may be accountable, monitoring dates and dates for evaluation. Every school plan must be developmental. So the plan must contain strategies for situation analysis and strategies for integration developmental tasks into the mainstream plan.

Every member of the staff must be imbued with the vision of the school. This will take some time to achieve because man is known to be resistant to change.

Once the school family is prepared for the implementation of the plan they must be trained to be ready for monitoring. Do managers constantly check what teachers are doing?

Let us not think this is the job of inspectors. We must equip ourselves to know whether teachers are delivering goods. The employee must be accountable to the employer and has to be accompanied during a great part of his career till he can perform with the help of his own critical self. Does this happen? Do rectors know the difficulties faced by teachers to get across their message to groups of students with difficulties? Even if the rector has a degree in English he must be able to participate in solving problems in Physics - because these problems are related to pedagogy not to content. Even a PGCE is no guarantee of success in teaching. A practicing lawyer must spend a few months in pupilage. Where is the pupilage of the teacher? This is what the rector organises because he is the headmaster. How conceited when a few people arrogate for them the right to pontificate over the merit of private colleges when they suffer from the same absence of management as state schools?

The emphasis in both types of schools is on quantity - not on quality. When they announce that they have registered pass at SC, they deliberately hide the rate of credit pass. Analyse the results and measure the percentage of students who have obtained low pass rates - 6,7 and 8 and you'll find how much is being dissimulated. Private colleges will say that they admit students with low aggregate at CPE. This is a lame pretext to confess that at the secondary level nothing can be done to improve the learning ability of the child. Is there a plus value in secondary education or does secondary education merely maintain status quo with no increment of learning ability. Is it possible that so many students with low grades at CPE should remain as stagnant as they were though they become more mature? The real fact is that secondary schools cannot convert potential into effective sharpness. However life does. Teaching by note dictation, rote learning, dominant teacher talk, bookish learning can only stultify the child. Analyse the teaching of sciences. The approach is so heavily academic that the child sees science as a heap of information. Why has Mathematics which was a passing subject become a failing subject? How does the teacher induce the learner's participation in problem solving? The work done in class and in tuitions is teacher dominant. It does not lead to the increased awareness of the learner. That is why quantity prevails over quality in our system.

The lucrative business that education is in private colleges is a heavy impediment for proper school management. Libraries are converted into museums, laboratories are an assemblage of casual equipment to obtain a grant, there are paid visits to toilets. Teachers in some schools are treated like masons or gardeners. There was a time when teachers had to share their increment with managers. A school cannot expect a teacher to give his best if he is treated as offal, if he is reprimanded as though he was a school boy. A positive attitude is energising, increases the worker's enjoyment of life, inspires everyone among  workers. The organisation benefits from increased productivity, teamwork, qualitative improvement of productivity, a congenial atmosphere and reduces stress. A thousand Shiv Khera's will not change the disturbing worker-employer relationship in many private schools.

A few schools have a tradition for civilised relationship based on mutual respect. Here there is an acute sense of belonging and stability. Teachers are not concerned with working in state schools because of the advantages of a management style that is indifferent and non obtrusive because of a could-not-care-less attitude.

If I have to choose between being a starry-eyed optimist and one who sees the sores of a body politic, I prefer to pass for a messenger of gloom because I shall have raised my voice against the harm we do to our children in our schools.