M.ED NOTES-UNIT-I Principles of Democratic Administration/educational structure at different level

 Yirci (2012) defined educational administration as essentially a service, activity or tool, through which the fundamental objectives of the educational process may be more fully and efficiently realized. Educational administration is concerned with the utilization of adequate resources and the harmonization of relationships and interactions in a suitable environment, in order to foster the attainment of the goals of teaching and learning. Educational administration requires rational decision in the selection of the best for the achievement of education agreed goals. But since the complexity of administrative decisions as well as human inability to see the future hinder successful rationality, the purpose of democracy in educational administration is to compensate for these limitations, partly by clear demarcation in the areas of responsibility of every member  based upon their competence and previous training and partly by formal rules and good communication. Decisions for educational goal achievement should be made collectively"democratically& under the leadership of an administrator.

Principles of Democratic  Administration

Justice:

justice refers to provide every individual his due in the society by honoring his individuality. This meaning of justice is the essence of democracy. As justice is one of the basic hallmarks of democratic administration, it is regarded as an essential principle of educational administrating which is democratic in form and practice. For practicing justice in educational administration there is the need and essentiality of giving due reward and share to every individual to his efforts and achievements.

Besides, every individual is to be given task or assignment in accordance with his needs, requirements, abilities, aptitudes etc. Hence the educational administrators for practicing justice as one of the principles of educational administration must be judicious while dealing with employees, students and public. But in Practice it is not happening as the educational administrators very often arbitrarily exercise discretionary powers and too narrowly apply uniform rules in one point.

And uniformity of rules in educational administration does not provide equality which is necessary to safeguard the individuals in another point. This nature of the educational administrator goes against the very essence of justice as it is to be free from such bias nature of them. Hence the educational administrators have to reduce this tendency to minimum for making justice beneficial, healthy and impartial in nature and approach as a principle of modern educational administration.

Equality of Opportunity:

One of the important social objective of education is to equalize opportunity or facility for enabling the backward or under privileged classes and individuals to use education as a means for improvement of their condition.

In order to keep equality of opportunity in concrete shape in the field of education, educational administration plays a vital role. For this greater emphasis should be given on equality of educational opportunity for the shake of accelerating the process for building up of on egalitarian human society in which the age old social exploitation will be reduced to minimum.

The principle of uniformity is not to be practiced and maintained in the field of educational administration as equality does not refer to uniformity. The cause is that opportunity means to provide adequate facility or scope to every individual for his development. In this context, the reasons for existence of inequalities of educational opportunities cited by the Education Commission (1964-66) can be highlighted which must be stressed in the field of educational administration.

These are:

(а) In equal distribution of educational institutions through out the country.

(b) Poverty of a large Section of the population and relative affluence of a small minority.

(c) Disparity between the education of boys and girls at all stages and in all sectors of education.

(d) Disparity of educational development between the advanced classes and the backward classes.

Every society that values social justice and anxious to improve a lot of common man and cultivate all available talents, must ensure progressive equality of educational opportunity to all sections of the population. In this context it should be the task of educational administration to make special efforts for equalizing educational opportunities by reducing the above cited problems of it. As a result, equality of opportunity in educational process will be practiced by educational administration as one of its principles.

Prudence:

Overall speaking prudence refers to thinking or planning or showing thought for future. Being contextual in approach it can be said that the futuristic outlook, vision and forward looking must be incorporated it the field of administration. Like general administration educational administration has to practice the exercise of foresight skill and vision with respect to matters concerning practical living and utility of the system of administration in future by the educational administrator.

This principle “Prudence” is closely related to intelligent economy which implies quality control. In order to ensure quality control in the field of education, educational administration has to make expenditure on education by accepting it as an investment on human resource. Because without necessary expenditure on education there will be no question of quality in it and then what about the matter of quality control?

It is evident from several studies that now in educational administration there lies a lot of wasteful expenditure for which the system of check and balance is essential. The system of check and balance is prudential in nature which seeks to protect an educational institution or organisation, an enterprise from mis-behaviours and mis-appropriation by an official or authority as misuse of power and funds that creates mischief.

It is known to one and all that misuse of power and money leads to the loss of public in general. Hence like general administration in educational administration there is the necessity of the system of “check and balance” to prevent such misuse. This will be done if educational administration accepts it as its principle in real situation.

Those who are good sociable, democratic competent and welfare oriented educational administrators liberty is granted for them. Liberty is granted to them with not making the system of “check and balance” rigid. Because it is essential to give freedom to the competent and delicate persons as educational administrators who are in the interest of good administration.

They give a differential treatment to different students, staffs, officials and community members as per their need remaining within the jurisdiction of educational administration. Besides an educational administrator in order to prudential in nature and work must have simplicity, understanding capacity democratic spirit and effective communication ability with him as attributes.

Adaptability, Flexibility and Stability:

An institution must be able to adjust with changing situations by fulfilling the developing needs and by improving its day-to-day dealings with persons or agencies involved. This characteristic of an institution is called adaptability. In the process of achieving its educational objectives, it has to deal differently with different human beings like teachers, parents and the public at large, who are affected in one way or other by the process or its products. This tendency is called flexibility.

The educational institution however must be able to achieve adaptability without creating any dislocation or disruption in its process and achievements. This property is named as stability. An institution must have these three characteristics in order to be able to achieve its objectives adequately and to give due regard to all persons concerned in some way or other.

These three characteristics are dynamic, adaptability and flexibility are especially so. Stability, however, is called as prudential check on the change which retains good in the old and gives up bad in the new. Hence, careful evaluation of the old as well as the new is an essential feature of stability.

Adaptability is concerned with acts of change and flexibility to a great extent to counteract with uniformity and stability is mainly the counterweight to adaptability. Thus on the whole, adaptability is the capacity of an enterprise to change, to develop and to improve. Flexibility is the capacity of an institution to react in variance with persons and situations affected and to warn against the dangers of uniformity.

Stability on the other hand is the capacity of an organisation to safeguard the merits of the old while it is in the process of change. Hence, all these three qualities of adaptability, flexibility and stability are complementary to each other.
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