Issues and challenges in Educational
Administration at Secondary and Senior Secondary Education.
The education system,
schools, and students have been drastically changed over the last decade due to
many factors. Issues and challenges 21st-century school administrators are
dealing with are much more complex than making up parents’ minds to send their
child to school – the biggest challenge school administrators had to face back
then.
1, Enrollment:
Student enrollment is the process of arranging to attend schools. Administrator
faces the many challenges
to take admission for maintaining the
2. Recruitment of
academic staff: Recruiting capable and qualified teachers to teach to a
whole population of students is also another highlighted issue faced by the
school administrators. Unlike in the past, the new technology helps to track
down the most competent teachers out of a whole pool of applications, but
still, the competition in the field of education makes it difficult to have a
healthy recruiting process.
3.Lack of
attendance: Attendance
of students is drastically dropping due to many reasons. Some of these reasons
are mostly unreachable by the school administrators, so even if the school
administrators have a solution, they are helpless as it is out of their
control. Today, the struggle has become much more than maintaining good
attendance.
4. The discipline
of the students: The modern-day students are raised in a completely
different from the world administrators grew up in. So, it’s important that
administrators try to understand where modern students are coming from in each
situation.
5. Lack of supervision: It
has been found that there is a poor concept of supervision in our schools. In
our country the process of supervision is characterised with the notion of
inspection. Supervisors create fear during the process of supervision in the
minds of teachers. This trend has created mistrust and reluctance among the
teachers. The supervisors instead of providing constructive feedback, dictate
to the teachers and hence no improvement takes place.
6. Lack of coordination: The problem of coordination has emerged due to weak
communication between the policy makers, staff, parents and the community. The
state of poor coordination in the system has promoted misunderstanding among
the stakeholders. Teachers remain at the receiving end in all areas, be it
making of the curriculum or any other policy. The teachers participate only in
the implementation not in the development part. There is even lack of
coordination between teachers and principals which has snubbed any discussion
on mutual problems faced by the teachers in schools.
7. Lack of
physical and learning resources: Due to lack of teaching and learning aids
in schools, teachers face many problems during teaching process. Some schools
even do not have basic aids such as boards and books. Some schools do not have
classrooms and library. There are no playgrounds for the physical development
of students. This situation has created more problems for teachers as they
cannot provide the students wider opportunities for learning and development.
In these conditions teachers fail to create meaningful learning environment in
schools.
8.Lack of
commuter skilled teachers: Technology
plays a huge roll in all the latest trends in modern society and the field of
education is no exception. But technology is not many school administrators’
strong suit and this has made it a real challenge for them to identify what and
when they should adopt technology to improve performance. So, lack of
experienced and computer skilled teachers in the institution creates a lot of
problem to maintain online status and records of students.
9. Lack of
financial support: The establishment of new secondary schools is essential
for meeting the educational needs of the increasing student population. While
India has pursued the drive towards universal elementary education. The
government is providing less financing support compare to needs of the
institution for the secondary education.
10.Lack of communication: Confusion results when administrators do not have regular and open lines of communication with their teaching staff or with their superiors. Because of overwhelming responsibilities, principals tend to become less accessible, which leads to less face-to-face interaction, which is important for the teachers and students. Instead, issues usually are addressed in general meetings because of time constraints. Faculty tend to perceive that they are being preached at, instead of involved with meaningful discourse. This method if not effective with students in the classroom; administrators cannot expect that it will work with their staff.
11.Partiality:
A major problem can occur in schools when
certain teachers, parents or community leaders are shown favoritism based on
their degree of influence or relationships with administrators. Many times,
this bias is not intentional; it is easier to placate rather than spend a lot
of time in a battle of the wills with someone who is known to be vocal about
his discontent or who threatens to call district and state education leaders.
An effective administrator will make decisions based upon what is deemed to be
best for the student and will stand firm in her position as advocate for
children.
12. Politics:
In schools that have elected leaders and
school boards, competition and fierce ambition can cause a problem when these
concerns override the main purpose of education. Principals who prefer one
candidate over another may try to persuade teachers to be like-minded. Some
candidates may use low test scores and high dropout rates as weapons to force
current leaders out of their positions, thereby casting the district into a
negative light. If communities do not see their educational leaders as people
of integrity, the motivation to participate in school improvement projects is
diminished, thereby negatively affecting the future of their children's
education.
