Scope of Educational Management

By scope, we mean the area within which functioning of educational management takes place. The scope of educational management today is as vast as that of education itself. Any activity conducive to the, achievement of educational goal, is a part of educational management. Such activities could be at the school level, at the college level, at the university level or at the control level. 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. Hence we shall consider the scope of educational management under the following heads.

(1) Goal Development :The educational system is a sub-system of a society, and therefore the society not only provides human and non-human resources but also certain expectations that the system of education will achieve certain goal. Since society is in a constant process of change, needs of the society change an 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 :According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Planning is “to design some actions to be done before hand”. Philips regards it is “the process of setting in advance a pattern of action to bring about overall national policies by the closest possible means and end.” Thus we can say that 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. The essence of planning is the appraisal of as many operational alternatives as possible ant then selecting the best for launching action. “Planning selects among alternatives, explores routes before travel begins and identifies possible or probable outcomes of actions before the executive and the organisation is committed to any.”

According to the Education Commission (1964-66) planning at the first two stages, i.e., national level and state levels alone suffers from some deficiencies such as (i) lack of emphasis on local issues in educational development, (ii) non-involvement of educational workers, and (iii) overemphasis on expenditure-oriented programmes. Planning at the local level, i.e. college level is only to offset these drawbacks. Planning at the college level does not mean that the principal or a few of the members of the faculty prepare the plan for various activities of the college. Instead it is a cooperative endeavour of all those who are involved in the implementation of the plans-not only members of the faculty, teaching and non-teaching, but even the students, the parents and the local communities must be associated while planning of the programmes.

The goals that are developed by the management system become the rationale for programme planning and actualization. Programmes represent the intended engagement opportunities for students who are to be educated. 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.

(2) Organization :Organization has been a problem in the field of education. The debate over the control of education has over and again raised the salient issue of how educational machinery should be best organised, politically, professionally and administratively. Here too, as in several other vital areas, education is handicapped by tradition. 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.