The redefined role of school leadership KARTHIK VENKATESH
The ideal school leader will need to have a
background in both education and management.
Today, the school head's role has expanded to include curriculum
planning and development, areas pertaining to student development, teacher
training, and financial management.
What does the term ‘School Leadership and Management' evoke? Does it
conjure up a vision of a disciplinarian school principal patrolling the
corridors and a sudden hush descending upon everyone? Does it conjure up an
image of students being reprimanded or worse still caned? It perhaps brings
forth something even drearier and deadlier. Well, all of that has changed
considerably and is changing even as you read this. The principal/headmaster
tag continues to linger on though the more corporate sounding ‘Director' is
increasingly making its presence felt, at least in private schools. But what
has really changed more than the image of the school leader is really the
nature of his work.
NEW
AREAS
With schools, both government and private,
having to reinvent themselves owing to government regulations and societal
expectations, the nature of the school leader has undergone a redefinition.
Today's school leader is likely to be more computer-savvy, student-friendly and
yes, perhaps less forbidding than we imagine him/her to be. In addition,
his/her concern is likely to be far more than the ‘syllabus' of yore. The
current buzzwords are “curriculum,” “all-round development,” “training” and
“technology-assisted learning.” In addition, a whole host of areas are now
making their presence felt in the working life of the school leader.
School leaders are today expected to perform a
wide-range of academic and non-academic duties and hence the job does not
merely revolve around completing ‘syllabus', goading teachers to produce
‘excellent' results and then basking in the glory once the board results are
announced. In the academic sphere, the nature of the school leader's duties can
be said to be in the area of curriculum planning and development, areas
pertaining to student development and teacher training.
The term curriculum is being increasingly
preferred to ‘syllabus'. To put it simply, ‘curriculum' refers to teaching,
learning, and assessment materials available for a given course of study and it
is far broader than the term ‘syllabus' which was merely a lesson completion
plan. Curriculum requires far more detailing in terms of subject matter,
teaching methodologies, assessment techniques and it is really the school
leader's responsibility to lead and manage the whole curriculum process. But it
is not as if the old requirements of students having to crack exams and leave
schools with ‘good results' has disappeared. The old continues to co-exist with
the new.
AREA
OF WORK
Ensuring all-round student development through
a variety of curricular and extra-curricular activities is another important
area of work. The old bookworm with great marks, but no social skills is a
no-no everywhere, and so developing student communication skills and attuning
the student to the social and environmental realities of the day through a
variety of methods in addition to classroom work is yet another area that
requires the leader's attention. With teacher training becoming more or less a
regular need as technologies, curriculum and regulatory environments change ,
it is the responsibility of the school leader to plan, organise and
occasionally even deliver training programmes of various types that will
familiarise teachers with the new realities.
In the non-academic sphere, the school
leader's duties revolve around compliance — affiliation and recognition — with
the RTE making this mandatory, property management in terms of school
facilities and infrastructure (fire safety, building safety, water, food,
transport, etc.) and counselling of and interaction with parents and children.
Another aspect which will assume greater importance in times to come will be a
greater degree of interaction with the local community especially with schools
having to reserve 25 per cent of their seats for economically weaker sections
in the light of RTE.
MULTIFACETED
MANAGEMENT
In addition, school leaders increasingly have
to do human resource management, financial management and strategic planning as
well. For one, schools employ a greater range of professionals than earlier.
The bland tags such as ‘Teacher' and ‘Senior Teacher' have given way to
‘Educator', ‘Academic Co-ordinator' and so on, and this has created a range of
expectations around the various new roles that have emerged. ‘Educators' expect
a greater role in preparing the curriculum and are no longer happy being talked
down to and merely being instructed to deliver the curriculum. It is the school
leader's job to harness their talent as well as put their feedback in
perspective. In addition, schools employ counsellors, assessment professionals,
nutritionists and so on. The school leader needs to be aware of their roles and
importance in the school set-up. In a start-up institution, he/she might be
required to play many of these roles himself/herself.
MANAGING
FINANCE
As private schools burgeon and government
schools also being allowed a modicum of financial freedom, the school leader is
also expected to be a financial manager. Prioritising expenditure, coming up with
innovative fund-raising techniques, and ensuring transparent accounting is also
the school leader's responsibility. Besides balancing the numbers, the school
leader also needs to develop a vision along with other stakeholders and then
translate this vision to achievable goals so as to develop the institution for
the long-term.
ACADEMIC
DUTIES
A school Principal/Director's day is likely to
be a heady mix of the mundane and the truly sublime. Academic duties are almost
de rigueur. On any given day, the school principal is definitely likely to be
making some decisions regarding curriculum and so meeting teachers and academic
co-ordinators is likely to figure on the top of his to-do list. Then a
significant part of his day is likely to be devoted to administrative matters
relating to finance, HR, infrastructure and the like. Dealing with parents and
other visitors is another very important part of the principal's schedule. And
of course, the day is incomplete without the principal dealing with students.
The principal might choose to teach a class regularly in which case he would
metamorphose into a teacher or he might choose to step in occasionally, doing
perspective-building sessions for senior students or ‘fun' workshops for junior
students.
CHALLENGES
Requiring as it does a wide range of skill
sets and areas of expertise, the ideal school leader will need to have a
background in both education and management. Regulatory bodies insist on an
education degree (B.Ed / M.Ed) and this is a must in order to develop a good
understanding of the process and language of education. But the efficiency and
effectiveness of the school leader is likely to be enhanced if this is
supplemented with a management qualification as well.
In addition, the school leader will necessarily
have to enjoy working with children, develop certain grounding in social issues
relevant to education and be comfortable working in a dynamic environment that
throws up new challenges every day.
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