IX. EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND PLANNING IN THE FOURTH PLAN
In the guidelines issued to the State Governments, the following approach was suggested:
(a) Streamlining of the planning, implementing and evaluating machinery ought to be given the highest priority to ensure the most effective utilisation of investment. Each State Government may carefully evaluate the present strength of its cadres, its recruitment and training policies and the motivation provided to personnel at various levels, and provide for remedial measures. It would also be essential to streamline procedures and decentralise decision-making authority to facilitate planning from below and ensure effective involvement of the people and the personnel at various levels. It will also take into account the vast variation of needs at the local level. Maximum possible initiative may be given to the institutions.
(b) The Education Commission has recommended that the district should become the unit of planning and administration. The staff needs at the district level may be carefully assessed and provided for.
(c) The supervisory machinery, especially as regards subject specialists in science and mathematics at the secondary level, needs considerable strengthening. The school complex idea suggested by the Education Commission may make more effective supervision possible, a part from developing and espirit de corps among the various educational institutions and teachers of various levels.
(d) The administrative machinery has to develop the capacity to change in response to the needs of new programmes and policies. An effective planning and evaluation cell directly under the DPI may be necessary.
(e) Various allied programmes within and outside the education budget, will need to be coordinated so that facilities created are fully utilised.
(f) The various institutions-State Institute's of Education, Institutes of Science Education, etc. may be brought together as an effective technical arm of the Directorate, which could keep in touch with the NCERT at the Centre.
The Planning Commission attaches very high priority to these programmes. A working Party was set up to consider in detail the schemes relating to educational planning administration and evaluation. The working Group has since submitted its report.
Objective 2. Gearing of educational administration to developmental needs requires to be emphasised. This would involve, among other things, striving tirelessly towards growth both in its quantitative and qualitative aspects. It also implies that a continuous and integrated process of planning for the future, an evaluation of the past and present experience and the provision of the widest possible opportunities for the professional growth of the administration, should receive a great emphasis in educational administration. De- velopmental administration is also oriented to service and is more outgoing and
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open. It respects the individuality and freedom of educational institutions and teachers and emphasises the provision of essential guidance and extension services and strives to provide a free outlet for initiative, creativity and experimentation on the part of the schools and teachers. It is designed for a modernising and rapidly changing society in which the emphasis is on individual development rather than on conformity. It is based on a close and continuous collaboration and cooperation between teachers and administrators and provides due scope for the professional leadership of teachers. It is both democratic and decentralized.
Special Unit Director of Education 3. In the present situation, the Director of Education, who is the pivot of administration at the State level, is so busy that he has hardly any time to review the various administrative practices and procedures and has no time to study these issues in any depth. It would be desirable that there should be strong statistical and planning units directly attached to the Director of Education which would provide him all such material to keep him fully abreast of the latest developments.
Recruitment of Administrators from the Teaching Profession 4. For developmental administration in the field of education it would not be desirable to believe that an omnibus administrator could be effective. He would not have the necessary background and vision to transform the educational system. Administrators form hardly about 1% of the total teaching force and one of the urgent tasks should be to start the process of indentifying talented people in the teaching profession and then developing in them special skills for undertaking specified jobs in the vast field of administration Providing the teachers opportunities for taking up administrative jobs and associating them with various academic bodies like the Panel of Inspectors, Boards of Secondary Education etc. will develop in them the feeling of commitment to programmes of educational development and open out to them the possibilities of rising up the educational ladder. It would also be necessary that the concept of once-an Inspector all-times An-Inspector has to be given up. This would mean introducing parity in the scales; of pay and attaching special allowances to the posts of administrators.
Rationalisation of work-load of Inspectorate and Subject
Supervisors. 5. The position regarding the present work-load of inspectorate varies from State to State but on the whole they do not find time to visit schools regularly. There is a need for further augmenting the strength of inspectorate. As regards norms to be adopted, it is desirable that at the primary stage, the target may be to have an inspector-School ratio of 1:40 and at the secondary stage it may be 1:30. This should include subject inspectors as well. One of the serious defects of present day educational administration is, that there are `generalist' inspectors and not `specialist' inspectors and, therefore, it is not possible to provide the necessary guidance and advice to the schools. This system has to be completely reversed.
Raising the Status of Educational Administrators at the District
Level 6. In a number of States, the status of Inspectors of Schools/District Education Officers is that of Class II officer and as such they do not carry any weight in the District-vis-a-vis the other officers. In view of the fact that they
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have to carry a very heavy responsibility, all these officers should be class I officers.
Recruitment Administrative Services 7. Various methods have to be used for making the Educational Service at the Centre and State more broad-based by making it possible for university professors, and others working in institutions of higher learning to take up administrative post on a tenure basis. It should also be made possible for the officers working in the State and Central Education Service to spend some time working in the field in order to get first hand awareness of the problems of education. The universities, colleges and eductional research institutions should accept the principle of agreeing to men of proven worth and scholarship working in administrative jobs to be eligible for teaching and research in the universities, for some time. This can be done by a suitable relaxation in the recruitment rules especially in regard to the matters relating to experience in teaching and research.
Training of Educational Administrators 8. The problem relating to the training and retraining of the educational administrators requires to be given a very high priority. For fresh entrants to educational administration, there should be induction courses to be followed by regular in-service programmes. The State Institutes of Education should take care of in-serive training programmes for junior officers and for other senior officers, there should be one or two seminars arranged for short duration. The training of senior officers in the Education Department, whose number at the moment is about 600 and is likely to increase to 900, should be provided at the national level at the proposed National Staff College of Educational Administrators. At this level, there should be cross- fertilisation of ideas among senior officers and this could be provided by arranging programmes at the national level where senior officers could come for short duration and through seminars and workshops exchange their ideas and experiences with their counterparts in other States. Besides providing training programmes through se- minars and workshops, the National Staff College for Educational Administrators would also undertake researches in problems relating to comparative study of various procedures and practices in the country and also of such problems in other countries relevant to our situation.
Evaluation in Education 9. The question of evaluation in education and conducting systematic and scientific evaluation of programmes has been neglected so fair. It would be necessary to identify important programmes requiring evaluation. It would be desirable to define the objectives of the programmes, their outcomes etc. It would also be imperative to have a continuous mechanism of evaluation which would help in periodically reviewing the programmes and suggesting appropriate modifications. While the State Governments would be concerned with internal concurrent mid-term evaluation as they were implementing programmes, the Centre should have a special role to play in this field because they are not directly involved with the implementation of programmes and their evaluation would be more objective and deep. Evaluation at the Central level can, however, be taken up only with the concurrence of the concerned State units etc. Evaluation of the Centre will have to be interdisciplinary and interdepartmental.
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Institutional and District Planing 10. If districts have to be accepted as units for administration, planning has also to start from that level. In this connection, the idea of institutional and district planning has to be accepted as the most important programme which would bring about closer association of the community in the formulation of programmes and also for fuller utilisation of the existing facilities and augmenting the financial resources of the institutions.
Financial Implications of Educational Administration Programmes in
Fourth Plan II. For various programmes listed above, the financial allocation during the Fourth Plan would be as under:
Rs. in crore
1 2 3
Rs.
1 National Staff College for Educational Administrators 0.70
2 Training of Educational Administrators at the State level
through the State Institutes of Education etc. 3.00
3 Up-grading the posts of Inspectors of Schools and D. E.
Os from Class II to Class I 1.00
4 Additional staff at the District level and Subject specia-
lists and supervisors 9.00 5 Training of Headmasters/
Inspecting Staff in institutional planning 2.00
6 Statistical Assistants and other staff in the offices
of the District Education Officers and other staff 1.00
7 Full-fledged Statistical and Planning Units at the
State Headquarters 3.00
8 Educational evaluation 1.00
9 Reorganisation of Educational Administration at the Centre 0.50
10 Publication of journals and other reading materials 0.50
11 Seminars & Conferences for Educational Administrations of
Higher Education 0.20
12 Deputation of Central and State administrative personnel for
inter-stats studies and tours 0.10
TOTAL 22.00
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