The Scope of Educational Administration

The scope of Educational Administration is broad. Eight functions fall within the school administrator’s responsibility: planning, budgeting, organising, communicating, coordinating, controlling, decision making, and staffing. Most have been treated separately as management topics; pulled together they describe the administrator’s specific work.

The breadth of EA

The scope of EA is broad. It includes every activity that takes place in the field of teaching and learning. Administration must first conceive the all-round development of education and then work to ensure that development happens.

EA is broad. The administrator’s job spans everything that happens in the school. No major function falls outside her remit.

This is uncomfortable for administrators who would prefer to focus narrowly. The reality is that the school administrator must hold the whole picture, even if she delegates pieces.

Function 1: Planning

Planning is the activity of deciding a future course of action.

Planning is covered in detail in an earlier chapter. In EA terms, planning ensures four things:

• Recognition of goals.
• Proper use of resources.
• Prevention of wastage, overlapping, and haphazard efforts.
• Definiteness and orderly execution.

A school without planning suffers from all four problems: unclear goals, wasted resources, duplicated and missing work, chaotic execution.

The administrator’s planning work spans:

1. Strategic planning. Multi-year direction.
2. Annual planning. The current year’s specific work.
3. Operational planning. Term and week-level activities.
4. Contingency planning. What to do if things go wrong.

Function 2: Budgeting

Budgeting is the quantitative expression of a plan for a defined period. It is the process of giving an estimated account of revenues and expenditures, expressing the strategic plan of the school’s activities in measurable terms.

Budgeting was covered in the financial management chapter. In EA terms, budgeting translates the plan into financial reality.

The administrator’s budgeting work includes:

1. Annual budget development. With the senior team.
2. Budget approval. From the board or owner.
3. Budget execution. Through the year.
4. Budget monitoring. Variance against plan.
5. Budget reporting. To stakeholders.

A school without disciplined budgeting drifts financially. A school with disciplined budgeting can connect resources to outcomes.

Function 3: Organising

Organising splits into two categories.

Material equipment

Material equipment includes buildings, furniture, libraries, laboratories, and workshops that support learning.

The physical infrastructure. Where students learn, what materials they use, what equipment supports the teaching.

A school’s physical organisation matters. A classroom with good lighting, decent furniture, and proper acoustics supports teaching. The opposite undermines it.

Human equipment

Human equipment is everyone involved in the teaching-learning situation: students, teachers, and the head teacher.

The people. The administrator organises who does what, who reports to whom, what each person’s responsibilities are.

Human organising includes:

1. Roles. What each position does.
2. Reporting lines. Who is accountable to whom.
3. Teams. Working groups within the school.
4. Coordination. How teams relate to each other.

Function 4: Communicating

Communicating includes all the formal and informal ways information passes up, down, and across the network of leaders, managers, and staff. Internal communication is vital for relationships and for getting the job done; external communication is essential for the school’s survival.

Communication was covered in detail in the communication chapter. In EA terms, the administrator manages the school’s communication systems.

Two domains:

1. Internal. Among staff, between sections, between management and teachers.
2. External. With parents, government, community, media.

A school with broken internal communication runs on rumour and confusion. A school with broken external communication loses parent trust. Both must work.

Function 5: Coordinating

Coordinating is the task of inter-relating the various parts of the work. Schools divide labour: the overall work is split into components, each owned by an individual or a group. Coordination ties those components back together so the school can reach its goals.

Coordinating is the work of making the parts fit together. The primary section’s work has to coordinate with the secondary section’s. The academic side has to coordinate with the admin side. The teaching has to coordinate with the assessment.

The administrator’s coordinating work:

1. Across functions. Academic with admin with operations.
2. Across sections. Primary with secondary.
3. Across grades. Grade 4 with grade 5 with grade 6.
4. Across time. This term with next term.

A school without coordination has good parts but a fragmented whole. The administrator’s coordinating work makes the parts add up to a school.

Function 6: Controlling

Controlling is the ongoing activity of checking whether work is progressing as planned. Goals are expected to be achieved within set limits of time, quantity, and place. Controlling ensures compliance with the plan and restrains deviation.

Controlling was covered in the control chapter. In EA terms, controlling is the administrator’s monitoring and corrective action work.

A school’s control system includes:

1. Academic outcomes. Test results, learning progress.
2. Operational outcomes. Attendance, financial performance, parent satisfaction.
3. Quality indicators. Lesson observations, parent feedback, alumni outcomes.
4. Compliance. Meeting regulatory requirements.

The administrator who controls well catches problems early. The administrator who does not control well discovers problems at year end, too late to fix.

Function 7: Decision making

Decision making is reaching a judgement or conclusion on an issue. In an organisation, decision making is institutionalised: it is the end product of combined efforts at many levels. The decision maker chooses from the alternatives submitted to her.

Decision making was covered in detail in the decision making chapter. In EA terms, the administrator is the school’s primary decision maker.

The administrator’s decision work spans:

1. Strategic decisions. Long-term direction.
2. Tactical decisions. Annual and term-level priorities.
3. Operational decisions. Daily and weekly choices.
4. Personnel decisions. Hiring, promotion, exit.
5. Crisis decisions. Unexpected situations.

A school’s quality reflects the quality of its administrator’s decisions over time.

Function 8: Staffing

Staffing is the whole personnel function: bringing in staff, training them, and maintaining positive work conditions. It includes recruitment, dismissal, resignation, retirement, staff health, safety, welfare, training, and pay. It covers the school’s manpower needs.

Staffing covers the entire human resource function. This is where the administrator most directly shapes the school.

Staffing work:

1. Recruitment. Finding and hiring new staff.
2. Onboarding. Bringing new staff in well.
3. Development. Ongoing training and growth.
4. Performance management. Evaluation, feedback, improvement.
5. Compensation. Salaries, benefits.
6. Welfare. Health, safety, working conditions.
7. Transitions. Resignations, retirements, dismissals.

A school is its people. The staffing function is therefore one of the administrator’s most consequential.

The next question focuses on a single function.

How the eight functions interact

The functions are not separate. They reinforce each other.

A school administrator who is strong on all eight produces a well-run school. One who is strong on some but weak on others has predictable weaknesses.

Most administrators are stronger on some functions than others. A useful self-assessment: rate each of the eight functions. Where am I strongest? Where am I weakest? The answer points to development priorities.

Flashcard

What are the eight functions within the scope of Educational Administration?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Planning, Budgeting, Organising, Communicating, Coordinating, Controlling, Decision making, Staffing.

Each function has its own work and connects to the others. A school administrator must attend to all eight, even if she delegates parts.

A second flashcard focuses on how organising breaks into its two halves.

Flashcard

Which EA function covers both the school's physical infrastructure and its human roles?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Organising.

Organising splits into material equipment (buildings, furniture, libraries, laboratories) and human equipment (the people and their roles, reporting lines, and teams).