Educational leadership Key to success for a school/academic institution - an article by - Anil Kumar Gupta

Educational leadership

Key to success for a school/academic institution

By

Anil Kumar Gupta

M.Com. M.A. (Economics).

M. Lib & I Sc. DCA. M.A. (English Literature)

Regional Incentive Awardee 2014

Librarian

KVS

Significance of Educational Leadership:-

                 There is great interest in educational leadership in the early part of the 21st century because of the widespread belief that the quality of leadership makes a significant difference to school and student outcomes. There is also increasing recognition that schools require effective leaders and managers if they are to provide the best possible education f or their learners. Schools need trained and committed teachers but they, in turn, need the leadership of highly effective principals and support from other senior and middle managers. While the need for effective leaders is widely acknowledged, there is much less certainty about which leadership behaviors are most likely to produce favourable outcomes. I examine the theoretical underpinning s for the field of educational leadership and management, assess different leadership mode ls, and discuss the evidence of their relative effectiveness in developing successful schools.

                   Educational Leadership requires a lot capabilities. This enables the success of an academic institution. The primary purpose of educational leadership is to ensure academic success through process, material and training improvements. This is mainly accomplished through collaboration with different individuals, such as educators, parents, students, policy makers and the people of the locality. From a business perspective, educational leadership is a form of academic management and quality control. A successful leader should be contemporary in all respect. He/she should be sincere, dedicated, courageous, and passionate for work, hardworking, knowledgeable, and resilient and should be capable about learning theories and child psychology and development. He/she should be able to work in a team with all kinds of people. He/she must be positive in all respect, credible, caring, charismatic, compassionate and inspirational. He/she should be soft spoken and respecting every individual.

                                         He/she must be capable to know other’s caliber and efficiencies. He/she must be known to delegate the work for smooth functioning of the institution. Educational leadership is centered on certain key principles. First, educational leadership creates a vision of academic success for all students. This is important because there has always been a historical gap between students on different socio-economical levels and high and low achieving students. Second, educational leadership strives to maintain a safe and receptive learning environment. That is, a healthy school environment is key to providing comfortable, orderly and structured classrooms. Third, educational leadership delegates responsibility to others. This means that teachers, parents and even students are empowered to take responsibility and accept accountability. Fourth, instructional methods and curriculum content must be continually updated and improved as per the needs of the contemporary educational scenario. Fifth, the field of education must borrow and adapt modern management tools, processes and techniques to meet modern approaches.

What Successful school leaders do?

 @ They provide clear aims and goal to reach.

@ They put in place sound approaches that enables teachers and students to observe learning process and the steps required to meet learning aims.

@ They communicate the vision of the institution clearly to students, parents and teaching faculty with other staff members.

@ They create positive environment for all.

@ They foster and promote a culture of trust and sharing of ideas and thoughts for the betterment of the institution.

@ They recognize that teaching and learning is their main objective and main objective of the institution.

@ They are well informed in their actions by principles of doing what is right.

@ They foster standards of teaching and learning that are high and attainable.

@ They spent time in the classroom to interact with students and observing teachers.

                             These were some of the features of a successful school leader. If these are considered success is sure.

Educational leadership needs the followings:-

·       For school leadership community of learners must be created. This will create a better scenario of learning among students, teachers and colleagues. Positive relationship may be built among the learners.

·       For a successful institution this is very important that they have to take care of their celebrations, traditions, culture and programmes. These must be maintained in all respect. These traditions help the next authority who joins the institution later.

·       To achieve high expectations from staff and students one thing must be taken care of that the traditions they follow must be obeyed in all respect. This requires high level of motivation for both staff and students.

·       It should be noticed by the authority that the faculty is enough capable to hold teaching learning process in a fruitful manner so that students may be benefited. They must be provided with all sorts of requirements. They must be well equipped and less interfere of the authorities to their work. Proper infrastructure may be provided to inculcate better educational leadership.

·       To maintain educational leadership this is very important that work or responsibilities or power must be delegated, so that less stress may be there on individual’s shoulder.  School Principal may play a very vital role in this regard. One event manager must be there in every school, so that teaching learning process may go on smoothly.

·       To create active participation school/institution leader may announce on monthly basis incentives as “sincere employee of the month”. Process of selection of such candidate may be transparent in all respect.

·       Role of leader of the institution/school is very important in respect to visibility and accessibility of the staff for active participation in teaching learning process. He/she should be socially and morally attached with all the staff members. He/she should not rely on one or two of the staff members specifically. Less time may be consumed by the teaching faculty to perform their duties, it should be sincerely taken care of.

·       Workshops may be organized on various contents time to time to enrich skills of the teaching staff to meet modern approach of teaching and learning. Contemporary approach of teaching learning process may be maintained an all respect.

·       To resolve every minute problem of every child, teaching staff may be trained to deal with such matters sympathetically and with positive approach.

·       To meet the objectives of the institution, team spirit may be inculcated among all the members. This will create positive and healthy environment.

·        A leader identify methods to energize your staff towards the creation of efficient and effective organizations.

.        A leader must develop a personal leadership philosophy and plan.

·                 A leader should analyze the leadership practices and philosophies of     current and former organizational leaders.

                                     Educational leadership and management are two different things. Managerial skill is totally different from the skills of educational leadership. Managerial part is observed by the educational leader in a school or in an academic institution. Educational leadership require better skills for smooth functioning of the school.  A leader should be energetic, punctual, resourceful, positive, skillful, working with team work, enthusiastic, socially, ethically and morally sound. Educational leader should be capable to hold the standards, the challenges and complexities of principalship, school reforms and require exceptional coping skills.                             

                          On the basis of above mentioned information we can conclude that educational leadership plays a very vital role in today’s school education.

Reference: -

1.       Educational leadership and management: theory, policy, and practice BY Tony Bush tony.bush@ntlworld.com. South African Journal of Education Copyright © 2007 EASA Vol 27(3)391–406.

2.       Educational leadership by Hiren S Parikh in The progressive teacher magazine. Vol.No.02 Issue No.05 of November/December 2015. page.8.

3.       Other articles from Internet and other sources

4.       Discussion with colleagues