The term ‘management’ is very comprehensive. Management means the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals.
MEANING OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT:
School management means running the school along the desired educational policies. It takes into account all aspects of the school (policies, material and human resources, programmes, activities, equipments etc.) and integrates them into a fruitful whole.
In simple words it means managing the affairs of a school.
CONCEPT OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT:
The school management system is a large database system and can be used for managing any school’s day to day business.
It is the process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling the activities of an institution utilizing human and material resources so as to effectively and efficiently accomplish the function of teaching, extension work and research for the purpose of achieving the aims and goals of school.
DEFINITION OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT:
There is no single accepted definition of educational management as its development has drawn heavily on several disciplines like economics, sociology and political science.
But some specialists in this area have propounded their views in the form of giving their definitions on educational management which are given below.
Paul Monroe (1913) – “School management, as a body of educational doctrine, comprises a number of principles and precepts relating primarily to the technique of classroom procedure and derived largely from the practice of successful teachers”.
G. Terry page and J.B. Thomas (1978) – “Theory and practice of the organisation and administration of existing educational establishments and systems.”
Shelly Umana – “Management is a method of operation and good management should result in an orderly integration of education and society”.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT:
The followings are the aims and objectives of school management,
- To reflect and conserve basic values.
- To carry out educational futures.
- To manage social change.
- To profit by experience.
- To carry out modernisation.
- To propagate science.
- To adopt technology.
- To realise National Integration.
- To form character and values.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD SCHOOL MANAGEMENT:
- Objective Based: It means to attain the objectives of education and schooling.
- Quality of Education: Good school management is concerned with the quality of education being given in schools.
- The best use of resources: In order to promote efficient functioning of the school, it makes the best possible use of the material resources.
- Joint Enterprise: It involves the joint enterprise all the personnel connected with the school – Teacher, supervisors, pupils, parents etc.
- Professional growth: It brings out the best in the teacher and supervisors and takes steps to promote their professional growth.
- Efficiency and Improvement: It tries to bring out over all improvement and efficiency in the school.
- Continuous process: It is a continuous process. It always concerned with improvement and development of the institution.
- Input–Output Model: It works on the input-output model. It takes into account the efforts made and the outcomes achieved.
- Community oriented: It is alive to social needs and requirement as the school is meant to serve the society.
SCOPE OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT:
Anything done to improve the quality of education at any stage may be ranging from the supply of material, human and financial resources to the highest cultural or academic needs-comes under the scope of educational management.
This scope of school management is very vast. It includes everything regarding the efficient functioning of the educational institution, securing the greatest benefit to the greatest number through an adoption of practical measures.
It interprets and clarifies the functions and the activities of an educational programme in fruitful relationships and harmonizes their mutual action. It ensures sound planning, good direction and efficient and systematic execution.
We shall consider the scope of educational management under the following heads.
Society is in a constant process of change, needs of the society change and so do the goal specifications. It is necessary for the educative process to be responsive to these changing expectations and it is through the educational management system that persons involved in the process of management can continuously examine, evaluate and change (if appropriate) the goals of education
Programme Planning and Actualization:
Planning is the process of preparing a set of decisions for action in the future and directed towards realising some goals by the best possible means.
Program planning involves multiple steps including the identification of a problem, selection of desired outcomes, assessment of available resources, implementation, and evaluation of the program.
The responsibility for the planning and actualization of programmes rests with the management system. It is therefore essential that the management system should provide technological support to the educative process in the form of consultations and services. The management system should initiate, coordinate, provide services and to be a part of these activities.
Organization has been a problem in the field of education. If conventional biases and prejudices can be replaced by decisions made logically and scientifically, with the achievement of objectives as the only consideration modern principles and techniques of organization will provide a basis for effective distribution and co-ordination of functions.
School organization and management is simply the way of managing whole tasks of school properly so that better results could be obtained and ultimately goodwill of school enhanced.
The significance of school management has all the more increased due to an increase in the number of students and knowledge and expectation for the transfer of knowledge. In India, there are more than 8lakh schools and 18 crore students, and their management is not that simple.