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Educational Management: Principles, Problems and Solutions

Educational Management Principles, Problems, and Solutions

Robert Kreitner, a distinguished personality in management, defines management as a problem-solving process done to effectively achieve the organizational objectives via efficient use of resources in a changing environment. 

And, as an EdTech service provider, we couldn’t agree more!

Education is one of the most diverse and agile industries where the environment is constantly changing and decision-makers at every level have to take extremely cautious, calculated, and well-planned decisions. Further, every educational institution requires efficient and reliable management to ensure productive working and optimal organizational functioning. 

Also called educational management, this set of activities aims at the “operation” of management functions in educational institutions. But, there is no set definition of the term, as the roles and evolution of educational management vary across disciplines and educational institutions. 

Here, we discuss the term educational management at length, explore the challenges it encounters and share some solutions for them. 

So, take a thorough read and hope this contributes to leveling up your educational management skills with the industry-best practices.


What Is Educational Management?

Educational management is the regular process of administrating and organizing functional educational setups. It explains every person involved in the system – “What needs to be done and the manner in which it needs to be done”. Also, every person doing a job must understand the indications that show whether the task given to them is successfully completed or not. 

Hence, the scope of educational management is quite wide and aims at bringing society and education together, and comprises of activities such as:

  • Setting, developing, and running the basic infrastructure related to education, such as schools, colleges, universities, libraries, museums, hostels, etc.
  • Maintaining academic records
  • Appraising student achievements and monitoring the student activities
  • Managing inventories related to supplies, such as stationery, books, hardware, digital equipment, building infrastructure, lab equipment, etc
  • Preparing schedules for teaching, training, exhibitions, seminars, presentations, etc
  • Ensuring discipline, work synchronization across all the departments and educational authorities
  • Prepare syllabi for classes, tests, internal evaluation, final exams, etc.
  • Managing funds, budgets, community services, and the overall health of every person in the system

Let’s take a look at the visual representation of the educational management given below:


Educational Management: Principles, Problems, and Solutions

1. Financial Management 

Managing the budget, investments, fees, operational costs, salaries, recreational activities, alumni meet-ups, functions, and other paid services on the campus – there are numerous umbrella activities under financial management.

Education management focuses on managing all the aspects of accounting and financial management in an educational institution that have a direct or indirect bearing on the overall functioning. The educational managers have to analyze the constituent elements of budget and cost management and identify the major issues related to them.

They need to manage, process, and analyze the cost data and project future steps to keep the costs controlled.

Problems in Financial Management

While it seems easy at first, managing finances in an educational institution is a daunting task that requires a thorough understanding of financial rules and regulations. Further, the educational manager has to identify the ways of bringing structural changes in the accounting system. 

Also, there are numerous other management tasks that need attention on a daily basis, and dedicating time to learning the minutes of financing is impossible. 

Solutions
  • Investing in financial management software or tools for organizational budget management can not only reduce the burden but also make the job easier, more reliable, and less prone to errors. 
  • Hiring the right talent to manage the basic tasks and operating the budget management system will also ensure better delegation of duties.

2. Personnel Management

Managing the people constituting the educational institution is also an important task and requires a fair balance between the personal needs of employees and the organization.

Some of the common activities involved in it are:

  • Discipline
  • Trade union relation management
  • Training the personnel for professional growth
  • Performance assessment and reporting
  • Managing hiring, firing, and transfers
  • Placements and promotions 
  • Wage and salary management 
  • Ensuring adherence to the job responsibilities

Finally, education management also aims at personnel welfare via housing, health and safety, education of their children, pensions or policy plans, and food & recreation incentives. 

Problems in Personnel Management

Many times the managers lack the qualities of head and heart to manage the personnel which leads to inadequate attention paid to the personnel or staff. Further, staff management requires a thorough understanding of the human relations approach, such as sympathetic listening, friendly persuasion, resilient yet flexible attitude to the adherence to rules and regulations, etc.

Some other problems in personnel management are:

  • The narrowness of the scope of staff management activities
  • Absence of thorough and robust personnel policies
  • Inadequate, inaccurate, or unreliable personnel records 
  • Not involving employees in decisions that affect them
Solutions
  • Create personnel management policies, regulations, and charters with the senior management and staff members
  • Ensure routine checking of staff sentiment 
  • Take feedback from staff in all the departments and work on the problems gathered in it

3. Institutional Management

Managing an institute is a whole lot of trouble, especially when you are looking at large educational setups such as universities and multiple departments with a campus of their own. Right from the staff to hardware, infrastructure to maintenance and beautification to new constructions – the number of activities in institutional management is astonishing. 

Major categories of all the activities involved in institutional management are:

  • Staff management and delegation of institute management activities among the members
  • Managing, maintaining, and ensuring the physical facilities
  • Investing in an inventory management system and record-keeping system
  • Interpersonal relationship management
  • Participatory management
  • Managing the business aspects of institute management
  • Institutional organization

Problems in Institutional Management

  • Having lack of proper financial means 
  • Lack of leadership vision in the educational manager leads to a poor or redundant delegation of duties
  • Facing administrative challenges in certain domains, such as research and development and managing the non-formal aspects of education
Solutions
  • Taking feedback from the management board to identify the issues, and pain points in institutional management
  • Investing in the right technology to support and streamline the operations and eliminate the errors
  • Opting a transparent management approach for ensuring confidence-based management

4. Supervision in Education – Academic and Administrative

Supervision is an extensive function that extends from the highest level to the lowest level in an organization and requires a thorough “direction, instead of control” for producing the best results. 

In the best-case scenario, the organization will have a low supervisor-to-operator ratio and every supervisor guides the operators, with a problem-solving and coordinating attitude.

Now that we have covered the supervision in administration, we need to address the supervision in academics. 

Educational management in academics involves a number of activities, some of which are as follows:

  • Organizing exams, tests, co-curricular activities, placement events, workshops, seminars, presentations, competitions, etc.
  • Formulating and improving the evaluation methodologies for practical or skills assessment, such as investing in smart EdTech tools, like PrepAI
  • Catering to the remote learning needs 
  • Having proper libraries, journal memberships, learning management systems, and interactive learning software

Problems in Supervision

  • Lack of right software or right talent to use or make the most of them
  • Not improving the internal assessment policies and means 
  • Misinterpreting supervision as controlling the subordinates 
  • Mindless delegation of supervision duties leading to clashes and interpersonal issues
Solutions
  • Have clear-cut leadership goals and supervision goals and ensure that every person adheres to them
  • Taking professional help in choosing the right software for your academic needs
  • Making internal assessments better and more relevant to modern times by using smart educator solutions such as PrepAI that make evaluation better, more reliable, less time consuming, and more relevant to the current times
  • Organizing personnel training events so that they can learn the industry-best practices for supervision in various settings

5. Training and Orientation of Educators

As important it is to educate and train the students with the best resources, it is essential to work on the skills and professional growth of the educators as well. Organizing activities, conferences, events, seminars, and presentations for training and improving the staff also falls under educational management. 

Doing so will significantly improve the quality of education and motivate the educators to opt for better and new ways to deliver lectures. When the lecturers know new things, they are highly motivated to share them with their students and this leads to better student engagement in the class.

Problems in Training and Orientation of Educators

  • Lack of financial means to organize such activities
  • Lack of willingness in the staff to attend such meetups 
  • Poor organization and conduction of training sessions
  • Poor quality of training material
  • Training fatigue in the staff because of continuous training sessions 
Solutions
  • Always opt for the most engaging and motivating trainers
  • Invest in quality, instead of quantity to ensure better results
  • Opt for smart EdTech tools like PrepAI that empower teachers with automation in education
  • Take feedback from the teachers to see whether they find these sessions fruitful or not
  • Make staff evaluation and performance an inherent part of promotion and incentives

Unlocking Success in Educational Management: Consistency and Dynamism 

By now you might have realized that educational management is an ongoing process with lots of activities and responsibilities in it. So, successful educational management has its roots in a proper combination of consistency and dynamism. 

Not only do the educational managers have to be consistent in their efforts, leadership, managing duties, and learning, but they also have to be dynamic to ensure that all the activities run in parallel, properly. 

With an effective analysis of the principles of educational management, we aim at sharing the industry-best knowledge with education stakeholders globally. This way, they can understand the best management practices and approach for managing in whatever role and designation they are!

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