Tapping Complexities with Education Management

Managing schools is a tough job.  It involves several hats to wear, as well as shoes to fill.  And in a larger picture, one could properly deduce that the same complex trappings lie on Education Management.
What should it mean to manage education?

a) It involves an untiring concern regarding the quality of education delivered to students.

b) It delves on judicious problem solving within the context of classroom education, as well as other forms existing in the purlieu.

c) Education management could entail the creation of systems that will carry over the complex functions of working out every aspect of the educations’ stakeholder community.

d) It could suggest the employment of qualified people and the overall pursuit for shaping the academe.

e) It involves getting feedback from the external community.  This feedback usually ricochets back to this community’s needs of which is appropriated by the education sector.

This list is only a conservative sort; more particulars are bound to appear.  Interestingly, it’s only a matter of looking at the right angle and equipping oneself to make that possible.  Education management, evidently, is a handful of hands and brains.  To make it work, individuals and sub-systems would have to assemble them-selves.
Consequently, there has to be a clear recognition of one’s role; this measure is actually referred to as self-efficacy.  Once, this is established, coordination between numerous roles has to be polished.  At tow with the whole process is also a group of individuals or organisations tasked of monitoring the whole management system. 
Indeed, managing something as big as education is tough.  In fact, ‘tough’ may simply be a sort of understatement.  Yet, no matter how overwhelming it is and sometimes, without really realising the expanse and impact of contribution, each stakeholder actively work on it – and with one purpose.

Education Management: Components & Roles

Shaping the students’ future through education does sound simple. In reality, there seems to be more than that. Teachers and students are the common forerunner of education. Yet, they’re only a miniscule part of the whole system that is called education management.

As a system, this management should include material resources – school facilities, building, and equipment. These ensure that both teachers and students are able to function well. In other words, this education management component ensures that every player is equipped with tools or instruments, as well as activates the simulated learning experience. 

Apart from the aforementioned components, below are external components that actively make up the education management:

• Governing hierarchical board of schools (local to national level) – this component presents important education standards and rules of which schools are to implement;

• Parent association – some are active members, some not. However, as long as a parent have a schooling child or children, by default, they become members of the association;

• Other organisations that transact important transactions with the schools – this is a collective term and may vary accordingly. This may be inclusive, but are not limited of school suppliers or vendors, and service providers (e.g., security, cleaning services). 

While components manage to function well independently, each is still considered to be dependent of the other. For instance, while teacher’s lecture is the heart of almost all types of learning methods, there are other varieties of mediums worth investing in training and time. One example is computer-derived technical skills. To make the skills development possible, students will need more than qualified instructors. They will also need computers, software, and support materials (e.g., reference book or booklets). Apart from acknowledging this interrelatedness, it’s also important for every education-participant to be cognisant of effective ways to enhance the levelled interactions.

Education Management: What and What-Next

When students complain and express their grievances, to whom do they address it? When school folks become too divided in purpose and become chaotic, which educational aspect or system subsists to make them whole again? These who-questions are probably answered with a lifting nod, indicating the school authorities, the ones responsible for doing ‘education management.’ 

This management could only be inclusive of covering: from the finest detail of educational workings, to the general concept of school’s all. Students may wonder what aspect of educational institutions needs managing; everyone seems to have their hands for everything in the campus. Some teach while others assist the ones teaching. And there are several facilitators – of the building, educational facilities, security, et cetera. Indeed, education management touches all.

As much of education, its organisation, and systems included progresses, management has become increasingly significant and challenging. It requires the ‘education managers’ to be dynamic and not resist change. It pulls the demand from students, parents, policy-makers, to the bigger societal needs and global heeds.

And not all can make the same huge leap, only incremental ones. This is not in focus of the receptivity of education management; the management simply has no choice but characteristically to be so. The pressing issue is how much it can take alone, as an independent unit; and addressing limits, who are its allies and prospective partners. 

Another point is that educational institutions need not just partners to absorb the shock of demands. Opening the educational institutions and systems for that kind of external partners is simply recognising the growing need for participation of education’s stakeholders. Everybody knows the risk inherent in expanding the scope of decision-makers, but it is not just sufficient enough to be contented with consultations. Evidently, there just has to be more in this ‘management’ equation.

Educational Management and Its Importance to the Academe

Managing the formal process of imparting knowledge and skills, widely known as education, is not an easy task. There are many factors to consider, as well as opportunities to grab and threats to look out for. As said, education is the formal process in which sets of knowledge and skills are passed from instructors, teachers and professors to students. To expedite this process, there is a need to manage all concerned affairs, including those not directly related to teaching -- education management.

Education management deals with administering all the affairs inside an academe. Usually, education managers are not given teaching assignments, and if they were, their loads were minimal so as to have them focus on the affairs of the school. Professors, instructors and other members of the teaching faculty are usually made to focus on their task as passers of knowledge and skills. The non-teaching affairs of the academe – including handling teaching salaries, maintenance of school buildings, equipment and ground, as well as doing other transactions – are left for education managers to mind. Education managers make the job easier for the teaching staff by handling the school’s problems and affairs alike.

While teachers and professors worry about the intellectual well-being of their students, education managers are in-charge of taking care of the over-all wellness of the students and teachers alike. They do this by providing safe and suitable places for instructions, procuring equipment necessary to speed up the learning process, and handling all paperwork and finances needed. These tasks are not easy ones, since running schools is totally different from running company. The main concern of education managers is to make the lives easier for professors for the latter to concentrate on their teaching jobs. Education management is a complex thing to do but is a very rewarding task.

The Essence of Education Management

Preschools, primary and secondary schools, universities and colleges: these are only some of the institutions that provide education to quite a number of people. The primary characters of the schools are the students and the teachers. The students are individuals who are studying to acquire knowledge and skills. The teachers, professors and instructors, meanwhile, are persons who impart those knowledge and skills. To the eyes of the public, they may seem only the people that are member of the academe. But behind the scene, there are individuals who concerned themselves with the day-to-day operations of the school. They specialize in education management or administration.

The aim of education management should be closely related to purpose of education. Schools and other educational institutions exist for the sake of providing education to those who wanted it. Education itself has its own. Because schools and other related institutions serve as the ideal venue for providing quality education, their goals should be similar to the purpose of education. If educational managers fail to recognize the need to overlap their goals to the purpose of education, they could become engrossed with putting more stress with methods and procedures rather than with how students could be educated better.

Education management should not fall to the danger of managerialism. Managerialism is the conviction that organizations are more similar rather different, thus there is a need to employ managerial techniques, solutions, rules. The pitfall of managerialism is that there is often an excess of usage of the techniques or rule, even if they run counter to the common sense. Practitioners see a little difference in handling a company to running a school.

Thus, principals and other school administrators should always think of the education first, before thinking of how to manage their respective institutions, as they should be.

Education Management Programme to Choose

The best courses in education management should be able to provide experience total immersion. This experience offers the great chance to evaluate your qualities of leadership, reinvigorate the participant's passion for higher level studies and enrich concrete strategies for a sustained progress and success in the institution the graduate will work in.

Education management programmes are designed to prepare you for the overwhelming struggles you will face as a senior leader in higher education. The challenges include, among others, the very high rate of accountability, financial limitations, material change in population characteristics, competition and the challenged relevance and effectiveness of higher education. The school you choose must be able to facilitate your channelling of your concentration on addressing the challenges posed by institutional change and give you the exposure to renew your dedication.

You will have a role to play as the representative of your organisation. See to it that your school can help you sufficiently prepare to become a steward subject to critical conditions. You need to develop conceptual and character tools you will use in comprehending the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of successful leadership in the educational institution. The course and school you should choose must facilitate your development of skills you will use in expressing and explaining a vision of your organisation. On top of this, the vision you will help mould should be capable of developing significant and long-lasting change in the institution. Further, it should be compelling in the first place.

In pursuing education management studies, you must aim to effectively lead in an environment which is going through the process of change. Second, the internal and external leadership functions you have should be in balance. Then, you should be prepared to work effectively as a member within a team of senior leaders. Thus, you have to be a good follower as a good leader.

Pursuing a Career in Education Management

If you are an educator or a professional holding a non-teaching position at a higher education institution and you are planning to pursue career advancement, then, a career field in higher education management or also known as management for the higher education level institution could be the career option that you need. This career field is usually described as working in a higher administrative or management job position that is involved in the managing, leading and directing the practices and policies at universities, colleges, professional schools, and other types of higher education level institutions.

There are several requirements for individuals who want pursue a career in management position in a higher education level institution. The primary education requirement is completing a doctoral degree or master's degree such as a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Higher Education Management. This MBA degree usually takes two years to complete and is intended to provide the student with several skills involved in administrative and management job positions.

If you are serious in pursuing a career in higher education management, you should also know the duties or roles involved in a management position for a higher education institution. The duties or roles include:

1. Overseeing and managing the teaching staff and members of the support staff, helping in resolving labour conflicts with the faculty staff and support staff, and conducting negotiations with the faculty and support staff over employment contracts, and other labour related issues or concerns.
2. Negotiating and holding dialogues with students, and resolving conflicts between the students and school management.
3. Helping in creation of financial plans for the school, creating and carrying out of programmes that would allow the instruction to keep up with academic standards for higher education and standards for school facilities and infrastructure, forming curricula structures, and in conceptualisation of plans or programmes to improve the instruction's capabilities for educating and teaching.