Diffusion of innovations was found positively and significantly related to the school climate (Methi, 1985). Another study supported this view but did not find statistical significance (Bagga, 1983). Innovative schools were found to have high change proneness (Kalla, 1984, and Molina, 1983). The gap between origin of innovation and diffusion always occurs due to many factors like ineffective communication, a tendency to keep new practices private and unpublished, conservatism among teachers, and lack of confidence and competence (Rajagopalan, 1983). Chauhan (1983) studied the characteristics of administrators. Innovative educational administrator had risk-taking capacity, self-confidence and willingness to innovate (Chauhan, 1983). Lack of participation of principals and other functionaries in the decision-making process came in the way of effective implementation of innovations (Kangasabapathy, 1986).
Kongrimai's (1984) study revealed that principals who visited innovative schools and studied improvement programmes were likely to accept new ideas and programmes without much resistance.
Mukhopadhyay (1984) made a diagnostic study on management of change. On the basis of analysis of large number of Indian studies and a conceptual framework, the author concluded that management of change has not been one of the direct concerns of educational man- agers, leaving many gaps in the process of ensuring change. In another ongoing study, a series of cases have been developed on management of change at national, state and institutional level initiatives (Mukhopadhyay, in progress). Studies on successful innovative institutions and documents in the form of a case would help others to understand the criticality of the process of change and its management.
PERSONNEL Personnel management is one of the critical areas of management. During the years under consideration, there have been 11 studies on personnel selection, structure, service conditions and transfer. Table 21.8 indicates level and statewise coverage of studies.
Appointment of teachers was not done under the reservation of seats schemes in the affiliated colleges according to the norms of the state government (Bhavare, 1985). The study further revealed that there was no mechanism to review the situation and for exerting direct pressure against the defaulting institutions. Fre-
1064 M. MUKHOPADHYAY, C.R.K MURTHY AND M. KANDAN
Table 21.8
LEVEL AND STATEWISE DISTRIBUTION OF STUDIES ON PERSONNEL
Level No. State
School 3 Rajasthan
Higher 5 Maharashtra and all-India studies
Technical 1 All-India
General 2 All-India
quent transfers of DEOs and their promotions were studied by Sharma (1978). The study found that, due to frequency of transfers and promotions and retirements, the average stay of one DEO in a district was nine months and the range was six to twelve months. A few other studies examined issues related to training (Sharma, 1981) and shortage of teachers (Sharma, 1976). The studies revealed that there were more untrained teachers in primary schools and, on an average, shortage of teachers was two per school.
Mukhopadhyay and Murthy (1986) studied personnel structure in engineering colleges and used Delhi to propose a rational structure. They found wide intra and inter collegiate variations in the ratios between teaching staff and technical staff, teaching staff and clerical staff and among professors, readers and lecturers. The work- load and need for specialization rather than the formula 1:2A was proposed as a criterion for determining the proportion of academic staff at different levels.
Varghese (1983) examined in-service education and its utility and value. Another interesting study focused on problems of resettlement of Air Force personnel after service (Punnoose, 1983).
As a part of the studies sponsored by the National Commission on Teachers in Higher Education, several analytical works were undertaken in the area of personnel management. Some of the important areas covered are: Recruitment (Singh, 1985), Grievances and their Redressal (Banerjee and Pylee 1985), Mobility and Inbreeding (Naqvi, Chopra and Kapur, 1985) and Professional and Career Development (Raza and Fernandes, 1985).
The studies listed above provide very little cue or information support for improvement of personnel management in education. Personnel structure, the selection process, placement and transfer, promotion, human resource development, transition and rehabilitation are some of the problems on which one or two researches have been conducted, but they are far too inadequate.
There are wide variations among the various states in practices of personnel management. No comparative study is however available to draw any lesson. Following the NPE, 1986 and the POA, a national committee is working on norms of transfer, NCTEs have gone into the issues of promotion and career growth, DIET, SIEPA and ASCs are being established all over the country to provide professional support to HRD activities in education. Every group is starting from scratch in the absence of any relevant research evidence.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION There are 16 studies on monitoring and evaluation. Of these, 14 are on school education and one study each is on non-formal and special education respectively. Table 21.9 indicates the statewise coverage of these studies.
Table 21.9
STATEWISE COVERAGE OF STUDIES ON MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Level No. State
School 14 Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu
. Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra,
Thailand
Non-formal 1 Andhra Pradesh
Special
Education 1 Maharastra
Evaluative studies provide feedback that helps improvement of the scheme/project. District and state-level science fairs provide a forum to exchange views and ideas of students, teachers, planners and administrators (Natarajan, 1983, and SCERT, 1980). Administration of secondary education in Uttar Pradesh was adversely affected to a large extent due to dual control of government and managements (Misra, 1983). SC and ST students of Harijan and Tribal Welfare Department schools showed marked and developed personality characteristics in comparison with other caste students, except in punctuality (Kamila,
RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT-A TREND 1065
1985). Sharma (1985) found that DEOs could inspect only half of the allotted schools due to pressure of other functions. Three-hour schools in Rajasthan began on a promising note (Verma, 1968); however the enthusiasm and interest of administrators, teachers and students gradually decreased in course of time (Shekhawat, 1972) due to lack of proper monitoring Sriviha (1986) found that supervisory activities could not be monitored effectively by principals due to non- availability of time and energy.
School improvement plans were prepared in many schools of Rajasthan as recommended by the Indian Education Commission, 1966 (Sharma, 1975). Another study in Rajasthan was on the impact of study camps for talented pupils. The camps did help students to get through the National Talent Examination (SCERT, 1982).
In India, very few schools have clear-cut schemes of self- evaluation. In few cases, it is carried out once in a while. In American and GDR schools self-evaluation is practised but it was not effective due to lack of adequate techniques and bureaucratic pressure (Deane, 1985). A study examined in detail the educational administration with reference to decentralization in Tamil Nadu (Ra- dhakrishnan, 1984). The impact of the Mid-day Meals Programme on enrolement and retention rate at the primary stage, particularly in rural areas, was found significant in an all-India study by Saxena and Mittal (1985).
An in-depth study on monitoring and functioning of post-matric scholarships revealed that there was no uniformity amongst the state, particularly with reference to time-frame and disbursement of money to students. No systematic effort was made to streamline the functioning of the scheme (NIEPA, 1986).
A study on special education revealed that integrated education for handicapped children was very useful, however at this stage the hurdles were non-availability of equipment, and teachers and lack of proper machinery to identify children (Rane, 1983).
A very massive project has been completed on evaluation of non- formal education in nine educationally backward states of India sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (NIEPA, 1987). This study revealed wide divergence in the process of implementation of NFE and levels of achievement of the scheme. Murthy (1986) evaluated administration of non-formal education in Andhra Pradesh and found that administrative machinery was inadequate both at state and district level.
TRENDS While reviewing research on management of education a few trends are evident in terms of:
a. Coverage of Sub-areas of research
b. Quantum of research in each sub-area
c. Differential concentration of research at various levels of education
d. Geographical coverage
e. Trend of research approach or methodology, and
f. Findings of such research
Items `a', `b' and `C', are covered in Table 21. 10.
Table 21.10
THEMATIC COVERAGE OF RESEARCH ON EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT AT VARIOUS LEVELS
Areas School NPE Higher Technical Adult Special All Total
& NFE Edn. Levels
History & 18 - 6 2 1 - 7 34
status
Planning 3 - 1 1 - - 10 15
Special 7 - 1 1 - 1 1 10
groups
Special 9 - - - - - - 9
problems
Participa 1 - - - - - - 1
tion
Autonomy - - 2 - - - - 2
Structures 3 - 7 - - - 2 12
Behavioural 27 - 7 2 - - 2 38
aspects
Resources 4 - 2 2 - - - 8
Legal - - 2 - - - - 2
support
Practices 6 - 3 1 - - - 10
Change 7 - 1 - - - 2 10
Personnel 3 - 5 1 - - 2 11
Monitoring 14 - - - 1 1 - 16
& evaluation
102 - 37 10 2 1 26 178
Table 21. 10 reveals certain major trends in terms of coverage of research on educational management. A very large number of researchers opted for research on the behavioural aspects of management and an almost equal number studied either the history or the present status of the administrative system in education. Prob- lems like planning, monitoring, various organizational patterns, practices, changes etc. received nearly equal attention among the researchers. Problems of participa-
1066
RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT-A TREND REPORT 1067
tory management, decentralization, organizational design and development, management of autonomy, rules, regulations and statutes are some of the important areas of modem management which have not received any attention from the researchers.
Among the various levels of education, as usual, school education received the single largest amount of attention of the researchers followed by higher education and other levels. The reasons are not far too seek. Since most of the research workers who work for the Ph.D. belong to the field of teacher-education and their attention is directed essentially on school education, research on management automatically focuses on to school education. While there is no proof that other sectors are managed better, it is interesting to note that the management of the high-cost education sector, namely, higher education and technical and other professional education, has remained almost unexplored.
Figure 4 locates research in educational management in different states. It is obvious from the mapping that educational research on management is not distributed uniformly over the various states and union territories.
Attention may also be drawn to increasing number of researches done in India on neighboring countries. Research workers from several third world countries have contributed research studies on management of education in their respective countries.
In the earlier pages of this review, comments on methodology have been made under each of the sections. As a trend it might be worth- while to mention that it is quite consistent to the extent that almost all research studies on management adopted the coross-sectional survey approach, only occasionally adopting historical approaches. In terms of a broad methodology, there is very little, if any, experimental research on management. On the statistical exercise, most of the studies restricted themselves to elementary descriptive statistics, except for studies in the behavioural science area that adopted regression, analysis of variance and a few such other statistics. Methodologically, options do not seem to be many and exhaustive. In fact, they are restricted to a few options and seem to have been guided by the tradition. of such research.
Trends of findings have been given in each section. It is difficult, if not unnecessary, to recollect the findings at this stage, again. Nevertheless, it might be relevant to mention that most of the findings are in tune with previous similar studies in the country and often match with international findings. This way raise a new dimension in the question of cultural bias in management or otherwise.
THE FUTURE A review of research on educational management should have a conceptual design. Management science has matured over the last few decades and is now capable of providing a theoretical framework. It is more important to provide framework which is not necessarily culture free. Research on management should be able to provide a message different from two stage import, namely, western to Indian situation and Indian business administration to educational management in the country. While there have not been many efforts to develop substantive management designs in education, the National Policy on Education and Programme of Action, as stated earlier, deliberated at length on the question of' management of the educational systems. They propose a few management approaches and a series of activities with a view to 'making the system work'. Emergence of any scientific management system that could ensure better performance for the educational system would have to be supported by an adequate amount of research.
Research on educational management in this new context would have to take a different shape, and particularly since the goals of such research would be different. For any country that has adopted planned development increasingly emphasizing decentralized micro-level planning, education can be no exception. In fact, following the National Policy on Education, efforts have been under way to develop district level plans for education which include creation of District Boards of Education, District Institutes of Education and Training, school mapping, school networking, placement, transfer of teachers, etc. While such innovative efforts are under way, the fact of life at the moment is that districts neither have enough scientific information nor adequate research base to evaluate how reasonable and feasible district level planning would be. Further, research may also be needed to resolve the present claims of planned development of education due to official initiative vis-a-vis people-initiated planning, and establishment of schools supported by government but not owned by and run by government. In either of the cases, it would be necessary to develop a database and research support to improve planning at the microlevel.
1068 M. MUKHOPADHYAY, C.R.K. MURTHY AND M. KANDAN
As a consequence to micro-level planning at the district level, the planning process has to get down to institutional level. Institutional planning is not a new concept, particularly as one looks at one of the earlier documents on Institutional planning by the late Shri J.P. Naik. It has, however, not happened as a management practice in the institutes, whether at school, collegiate or in professional education. It may not be an over-statement to say that there are not even enough comprehensive alternative models on institutional planning available in the country to examine, learn and disseminate. Much less is the research on institutional planning as has been indicated earlier, particularly to test whether it necessarily relates to better performance of the organization. What approach to institutional planning leads to better performance? What are the alternative contributions of a behavioural model of insti- tutional planning vis-a-vis a traditional administrative model close to physical resource planning answers will have to be sought to such questions.
There have been very few efforts at estimation of utilization of resources in education and also cost-effectiveness and institutional performances. Although the efforts are not many, they provide some indication that the educational system at the state, district and in- stitutional level including national institutes, is not performing at the optimum level. As a result, more funds may not necessarily lead to the achievement of educational goals and objectives. On the contrary, more funds might mean replication of more inefficient units of the system. Organized research needs to be initiated to understand the parameters that make an educational system more productive, more functional and more efficient. Long-term experimental projects will have to be initiated to develop alternative, comparative models for making the system work and on institution building.