RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT A TREND REPORT : M. KUKHOPADHYAY, C.R.K. MURTHY, M. KANDAN
BACKDROP Research on problems of education and particularly those related to its management, started as early as the 1940s. During the last forty years or so, there have been three major bench-mark surveys of research on problems of educational management (Buch, 1974, 1979 & 1986). In each of these survey reports, experts reviewed the trend of research in the field of management (Desai and Rao 1974, Desai and Parmaji 1979, and Valecha and Abraham 1986). As the fourth survey trend analysis is taken up, one is confronted with the question re- garding the basic purpose of such bench-mark surveys and analyses of trends of research. The previous reviewers provided detailed analyses of the researches done and also made recommendations in the light of their own expertise and experience, concerning desirable directions for future research. It is, however, not evident from the analyses of subsequent reviews that such trend analyses and projection of research needs influenced the choice of subjects by later educational researchers.
Educational research on management, thus, seems also to be caught up in the syndrome of indifference and mutual exclusion. It is probably not yet seen as a professional activity. Educational management is still seen as basically an off-shoot of pedagogical skills at the school level and an overflow of content specialization at the higher education level. The situation is not different when one moves from institutional management to the management of areas and larger systems like districts, states and universities. The District Education Officers or the Joint Directors or the University Vice Chancellors or Registrars, are selected on the basis of their specialization either in the field of pedagogy or in the field of subject content. Education and training on management is not seen as a prerequisite for managerial positions and activities. Even when it comes to Directors of Education in the states and Deputy Secretaries onwards at the national level, such posts are offered to IAS cadre who have a record turnover rate, moving from labour to rural development to finance and what not. Educational management is, thus, not seen as a specialized area of activity.
Management education per se has matured in a significant way in this country with the establishment of the four Indian Institutes of Management, management departments in more than fifty universities, five IITs and a large number of specialized institutes in this field. Nevertheless, education is usually not an area of operation in such management institutes. In other words, the programmes and experiences would indicate that the total thrust of management education in this country has gone into business and industrial organisations.
It would be evident from the above analysis that professional management and education have more or less remained mutually exclusive, and a reflection of this situation is seen in research on educational management.
The Challenge of Education and the National Policy on Education : 1986 (NPE) brought this mutual exclusion into focus and emphasized the need for professionalization of educational management. It is, in
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1050 M.MUKHOPADHYAY,C.R.K.MURTHY AND M.KANDAN
fact, important to note that in the context of the development of our country, the management of the service sector assumes not only importance but is central to the development process itself. Industrial development in the agricultural sector, and in the economy at large have provided new opportunities for improving the quality of life of the Indian people. Encashing the value of this opportunity would, however, depend not only on economic growth but also on dis- tribution of wealth and proper management of the service sector. Education, health, agriculture and social welfare are some of the critical areas from this angle. They have suffered from lack of professional management. This crisis has been boldly highlighted in the NPE and Programme of Action (POA) for education.
Hence a review and trend analysis of research on educational management, at this juncture, should be able to assist in understanding managerial problems, issues and solutions relevant to this service sector. A review with such a goal would warrant a conceptual framework which befits the educational structure, scenario and its problems in the Indian context. Educational management is taught in B.Ed and M.Ed. programmes and even to a large extent in the in-service programmes conducted by state and national-level institutes. Such programmes are based primarily on management theories which had their origin in western countries significantly alien to Indian culture. Secondly, even when such theories emerge out of Indian experience these are primarily in the industrial and business sectors which have a very specific profit-oriented goal compared to education, health and such other sectors. Given the circumstances, one is caught in a dilemma of choosing one of the three alternatives. The first would be to base the programme on generic management theory which could, however, be incapacitated because of the two-stage imports mentioned above.A second approach would be to classify the studies in a value-free manner as they appear. A third would be to look for an educational management paradigm. Scanning through the literature and all the 500 and odd studies conducted in India in this field, it would be evident that educational management as a conceptual framework is still evading us.
The Challenge of Education, National Policy on Education : 1986 and the subsequent document, Programme of Action reviewed the position regarding professional management in education. In fact, these documents need that success in implementation of the National Policy on Education would be a function of its management processes. In the chapters, 'Making the System Work' and 'Management of Education', sub- stantive ideas on educational management have been presented. Various managerial concepts and recommended practices are strewn over various other chapters also. While one may not uncritically accept the whole policy as a framework of management, it does throw up significant conceptual elements that must be thought through to generate a framework. Further, the Policy on Education has been projected for a period of fifteen years. The structure and process of management of education is likely to be significantly influenced by the developments arising out of implementation of the National Policy on Education.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The conceptual framework of management in education is presented in a few diagrams (Figures 21.1, 2 & 3). The figures are self-explanatory and also reflect and accommodate the concerns and approaches spelt out in the policy document. Educational research in the field of management ought to provide data-based feedback for various processes and structures which operate in educational management.
It would be interesting at this stage to examine the earlier studies, vis-a-vis the conceptual framework presented in the diagrams. The classification of studies done by the expert reviewers in the first three Surveys of Research in Education is given in the Table 21. 1. Table 21.2 presents a comprehensive content analysis of the abstracts provided in the first three surveys to identify the kind of major variables and problems studied in the field of management.
It would be evident from the superimposition of Tables 21.1 and 21.2 on Figures 21.1, 21.2 and 21.3 that a very large number of researches are in the areas of organizational processes or behavioral aspects and rest of the areas are almost blank. While Valecha and Abraham (1986) commended the emphasis on human aspects of management, one must not hesitate to bring home the point that largest number of researches on educational management come from Ph.D. scholars who have, as their background, a post-graduate degree in education. Thereby they are rather conditioned to studies on human-behaviour related problems. Further it would be evident that many such studies in the organizational behaviour area are influenced by the availability of some of the standard research instruments rather than perceived problems of management. For example, a large number of research scholars used LBDQ, OCDQ,
RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT-A TREND REPORT 1051
PTO and similar other questionnaires and adopted a multivariable correlational study, a few others used some kind of prediction by using regression or other forms of multivariate statistics. Such studies have contributed to some kind of an understanding of relationships among various variables vis-a-vis Indian managers. They, however, failed to sort out problems of Indian origin or gene- rating theories of educational management close to Indian reality. Nor have they been able to throw light on organizational structures, management of resources, the managerial process, systems design, and so on.
A review of the next set of studies that emerged between 1983 and 1987 can be against the framework referred to above, and should examine whether there have been any changes in the pattern of studies and their understanding. Following the review, it would be necessary to locate the areas where research, profitably set more in the applied form, would be needed to provide practical support to the emergence of efficiency of educational management in the country. It would also be necessary to identify the people and the institutes that can and should contribute to this critical area of research in future.
During the last forty odd years, some 557 studies that are related to educational management have been completed. Seventy-five studies were reported in A Survey of Research in Education (Buch, 1974), 86 studies in Second Survey of Research in Education (Buch, 1979), and 222 studies in Third Survey of Research in Education (Buch, 1986) and some 172 studies are presented in this volume. There has been a decline in the number of studies on educational management during the last five years compared to the immediately preceding five years. Without further evidence, attaching any cause and effect rela- tionship to the decline would be far-fetched and premature. To keep in tune with a comprehensive framework of educational management for reviewing the studies, it would be important to look back at the three figures given earlier. Extracting from the three figures, the studies can be classified into several areas belonging to two broad clusters:
Cluster I:
a. History and Status
b. Planning
c. Special Groups and Special Problems
Cluster II:
a. Goals of Management
b. Decentralization
c. Participation
d. Professionalization
e. Autonomy
f. Accountability
g. Structures
h. Behavioural Aspects
i. Resources
j. Practices
k. Legal Support
i. Personnel
m. Change
n. Monitoring and Evaluation
Table 21.1
CLASSIFICATION OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Survey I Survey II Survey III
1. Education authority Educational agencies History and develo-
or agencies pment of educational
institutions
2. Inspection and Inspection & supervision Administration & or-
supervision ganization of inst-
itutions.
3. Different branches stage of education Supervision and te-
of education aching methods
4. Educational probl- Organization and Wastage, stagnation
ems such as com- planning and dropout
pulsory education,
wastage & stagna-
tion
5. Organisation and Organisational climate Psycho-social fact-
planning & teacher morale ors/aspects of
teachers.
6. Organisational Policies and reforms, Special institutions
behaviour teachers problems and Studies on universal
attitudes, etc. elem. education me-
dium of instruction,
7. Education policy, effectiveness if
reforms, teacher's N.C.C programmes,
participation in manpower nutrition
school administra- for pre-schoolers,
tion, teacher or- etc.
ganizations, etc.
1052 M. MUKHOPADHYAY, C.R.K. MURTHY AND M. KANDAN,
Table 21.2
CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ABSTRACTS OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT
SURVEY I SURVEY II SURVEY III
Administration of schools Administrative behaviour Academic achievement
Agencies Administrative climate Administrative, coordination, Administra-
tive process, aggregate approach
Attitudes of teachers Attitude of teachers Authenticity Authority of education Auton-
omous colleges
- - Bureaucracy Bureaucratic framework
Conditions of pre-primary education Centre-state relations
in education Centralization
Classroom climate Change, corruption, change in the teacher-
pupil ratio.
- Communication Character & morale, integrity, Cooperative,
Classroom climate, Collegiate education
- Communication to the rural areas Commu-
nication climate
Dropouts Dropouts Dysfunctional
Division of workload
Descriptive approach Dropout
Evaluative criteria for school
inspection Educational facilities Economic conditions
Evaluation of different educational
settings Educational planning Educational administration
Evaluation of govt. educational
policies Evaluation Educational management
Evaluation of teacher
training Educational status
Expenditure of education
Educational planning
- Educational structures
Evaluation of educational structures and
management practices
- Educational facilities
Educational agencies
Educational forecast
Effective communication
Educational environment
Environment of professional institutions
- - Environment of home
Examination committees
- - Faculty admission policy
- Historical evaluation
of education Human attitudes and values
Human relations -
Implementation Inspection Industry-polytechnic collaboration
Institutional improvement Implementation
Innovation
- - Innovations in teaching methods
Insufficient equipment
Inefficient function
Job-satisfaction of teachers Job motivation -
Leadership role Leadership behaviour Leadership aspects of supervision
Leadership training programmes
- Lack of specialization, staff
RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT-A TREND REPORT 1053
Legitimacy
Manpower survey Management evaluation
Methods of supervision Management development programme
Modem trends Morale of teachers and students
- - Models of administration
- NCC training
- Organizational climate Organisational climate
Operational functional
- Optimum economic strategy
Parent-teacher cooperation Personality Panel supervision
Primary school Policies and reforms Philosophy of administration
Problems of teachers Professional organizations Personal administration
Problems of women teachers - Policy and programme
Psycho-social aspects of administrators
Political linkage
Productivity
Poverty
Poor educational background
- - Poor quality of teaching
Polytechnic colleges
Planning Commission
Physically disabled
Private schools
Role of different agencies Role of Centre-State agencies Rules
Role of principal Role of school library Regulations
Role-performance
Role conflict
Resource allocation
School improvement School inspection Socio-economic status
School organizations Scholastic achievement Social relationship
Secondary school Selection procedures Staff-concept
Socio-psychological factors Stagnation
Stagnation Students' behaviour
Surveys Students' participation
Students' attitude
Special education
Special facilities
School education
- - School committees
Scientific and representative sample
Supervision
Teacher associations Teacher associations Teaching aids
Teachers morale Teacher unions
Teacher methods
- -
- - Undernourishment
Universal elementary education
Vocational education - Values
Wastage Wastage Wastage
Work environment