3ISSN: 2181-1385 ISI: 0,967 | Cite-Factor: 0,89 | SIS: 1,9 | ASI: 1,3 | SJIF: 5,771 | UIF: 6,1
INVESTIGATING THE IDENTIFICATION OF EFFECTIVE FACTORS IN IMPROVING SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
Mohmand Shirzad
Academic member of psychology and education sciences Department, Faculty of Education, Parwan University, Afghanistan
ABSTRACT
The way of leadership and management is effective in the behavior of employees, the achievement of goals and the efficiency of an office or organization. At the same time, the effectiveness of management depends on the personality and management characteristics of the manager. The main goal of this research is to identify effective factors in improving school management. The importance of this research is that with its results, it is possible to help school administrators to have effective management and with proper management, they can provide a better educational situation for students in schools. The data collection in this research article was done by the qualitatively library research.
The findings of this research showed that, in general, two general factors play a role in the effectiveness of school management, which are: the manager's personality characteristics and management skills.
The personality characteristics of the manager are generally divided into three parts, which are: the physical and mental characteristics of the manager including: physical and mental health, and the power of thinking, understanding, and having appropriate morals and behavior, maturity characteristics of the manager including education, his experience, and the characteristics of the manager's power, i.e., how the manager uses power, including the power of reward, the power of coercion, and the power of law.
Another factor that plays a role in the effectiveness of school management is having management skills that managers have skills in the fields of creating a suitable work environment, making employees aware of educational goals, creating a sense of interest and attachment of employees towards their work; They should also be skilled in managerial duties such as needs assessment, planning, organizing, recruiting, and monitoring and controlling.
Keywords: manager, management, schools, effectiveness.
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ISSN: 2181-1385 ISI: 0,967 | Cite-Factor: 0,89 | SIS: 1,9 | ASI: 1,3 | SJIF: 5,771 | UIF: 6,1
Introduction
There is no doubt that the way of leadership and management is effective in the behavior of employees, the achievement of goals and the efficiency of an office or organization. Realizing and achieving the goals of the administration depends on the personality traits and skills of the manager. Managers are moderators and work leaders. If they are not aware of management principles and technology, they cannot solve the problems of their administration. The need for this technology is felt in school management more than any other offices because school is a place of learning and education and a human-making factory. If the schools are managed correctly, it will harm the society and its individuals, therefore, it seems necessary to identify the factors that are effective in school management and improve school management. Recognizing these factors to create a good working environment, to initiate innovation, positive changes, will help the school managers to increase the effectiveness of the lesson and improve the school situation.
The goals of this research are to identify effective factors in improving school management.
Research questions:
• Who is the manager? And what is management?
• Which characteristics should school managers have to have effective management?
• What skills should school administrators have to manage educational activities in the best possible way and improve the education process in schools
Importance of the Research
The importance of this article is that its contents have been obtained from reliable scientific sources and have been prepared and arranged in the form (direct, indirect, and summarizing) that require library research. At the same time, the research in this case seems important because its results can be used to help school managers to have effective management. this is certain that the effectiveness of management has helped in improving the condition of schools and as a whole teaching and learning process that is the main goal of school administration is also influenced by school management and the quality of education will also be affected and
improved.
Materials and Research Methodology
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The collection of information in this research, due to time constraints, lack of facilities and budget, which forced the scholar from doing field research, made him to research from the library with a qualitative method, which was done according to Hafez Nia's point of view. To collect information from the library, Hafez Nia has mentioned a study slip in his book: It is the paper and cardboard that the researcher finds the content or text that is related to the research problem as a source of study and notes or pastes on it. The content that the researcher records or remembers in the form may be the same (direct quotation) or based on the researcher's perception and understanding of the material (in the form of indirect quotation), it may be translated from another language or summarized. In this method, after completing his information in the field of research, the researcher arranges and organizes the material and writes the result of his research (Hafez Nia, 2013: 205).
Findings
Now that the objectives, questions, importance and method of research have been determined in this research, we will discuss the main content (answers to the same questions) that have been proposed before.
Who is the manager? And what is management?
Different definitions of manager and management have been given by scientists, and here it is enough to present one definitions.
Definition of manager and management: A manager is the one who is responsible for directing and leading an organization or department. We can say that a manager is a person who creates coordination between different parts of human and material powers to achieve the goals of the organization.
Management is the action of the manager, which can be defined as follows: It is the science and art of creating coordination between material and non-material resources in the organization to guide the group towards the goals and achieve them, with the highest level of efficiency. (Hassanzadeh, 1401: 30)
Effective factors in school management
Two general factors play a role in the effectiveness of school management: the manager's personality characters and management skills, each of these two factors has its own smaller components, which are described below:
A - Manager's personality characters
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One of the factors that plays a major role in the effectiveness of the manager's work is the personality characteristics of the school manager, which can be generally divided into three parts: the physical and mental characteristics of the manager, the maturity characteristics of the manager, and the characteristics of the manager's power.
1- Physical and mental characteristics of the manager
In the section of physical and mental abilities, the following can be mentioned:
1- Managerial physical health
One of the factors that makes the manager's management effective is the physical health of the manager or leader which they must be in good health to be able to perform their duties well; Because a disabled or a sick person who always suffers from his illness or disability cannot succeed in the decisions and solving the problems of the school, which relies more on the intellect and intellectual power of the principal, because common sense is in a healthy body.
2- Manager's mental health
Another factor that plays a role in the effectiveness of the manager's work in the school is the mental health of the manager. The mental health of the manager is far more important than the physical health of the manager. Because managers who do not have mental health make life bitter and unpleasant not only for themselves, but also for everyone around them, and cause discomfort, discouragement, depression, and aggressive behavior of people, also cause disruption of the order of the work environment and disorder in behavior. This situation affects and slows down the work and activities of the administration, also has unwanted effects on the learning process of the students. (Sultani, 1400: 195).
3- Manager's emotional health
Another factor effective in school management is the emotional health of school administrators. In fact, emotion creates qualitative aspects of life and behavior, which has a great impact on the success of people and causes repulsion and attraction of people. School principals should not suffer from emotional disorders and become emotional too soon; Rather, the manager should not be so emotional that the others take advantage of his situation, also should not be so heartless that they break the relationship with colleagues. On the other hand, the lack of emotional health of the principal in the school causes the
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lack of interest in work and the lack of work of teachers and other employees in the school (Shams, 2016: 140).
4- Mental health and power of thinking and understanding
High thinking and understanding power are the basic logic of effective management. Therefore, school administrators must have common sense to think logically and consider different dimensions of a problem. Identifying the problem and finding the right solution for it, is a task that requires high intelligence and understanding power. So, managers will be successful in their management work if they have this feature (Shams, 2016: 111).
5- Ethics and appropriate behavior
The advantage of good ethics in school management is of great importance; Because every human being is evaluated according to the degree of emergence of moral values in his thoughts, speech, and behavior. The first manifestation of a person in society is his morals. So, we can say that school principals not only play a major role in the orderliness of schoolwork, but as role models, they influence the behavior of other office employees, including teachers, students, etc. School principals who act as role models cannot have effective school management if they do not have good morals. Because the lack of good ethics in leadership and management has deprived the teachers and other educational employees of trust and confidence in him, in which case some of the principal's orders have been disobeyed and causes chaos in the school. On the other hand, the atmosphere of cooperation, relationships and mutual respect between school principals, teachers and other employees have been lost, causing the disintegration of school administration order (Lutfabadi, 2016: 238).
2- Maturity characteristics of managers
One of the effective factors in advancing and applying the work of school management is having maturity characteristics. The maturity characteristics of a manager means reaching the stage of maturity; in addition to physically reaching the stage of maturity, the manager must achieve this maturity in terms of education, experience, emotions, etc. Maturity characteristics of managers include the following:
1- Having knowledge
Having knowledge here does not mean only being literate; if this was meant, every teacher would have the blessing of literacy and would be able to carry out the task of managing the school well. Rather, managers should have three types of
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knowledge (general knowledge, specialized knowledge, and managerial knowledge) so that they can perform proper and effective management.
For this reason, general knowledge is important for school managers so that they can understand social, moral, ideological, religious, and economic issues related to their work. Specialized knowledge for managers is very important in improving the quality of their work. Specialist managers who manage their specialized department can understand and raise the problems and needs of that department in a professional manner; For example, if a person is specialized in the military sector, even though they are literate and knowledgeable; they cannot have proper management in the field of education and training because the management of education requires the identifying of requirements of the education. Also, school managers must have management understanding of the duties and responsibilities of an officer and to know which responsibilities and duties a manager is responsible for to handle them (Alegheh Band, 2014: 89).
2- Experience
Experience is also one of the characteristics of human maturity, which has been necessary in managerial work and activities, and is very important for the advancement of management. Because research has shown that the individual who has not experience in administrative work if they are recruited directly after the becoming specialist will not be successful in work and management programs. They may do things that will be difficult to compensate for in the future. So, school management needs an experienced person more than any other management. Because the director of a school with many people such as the teachers, students and other administrative employees of the school, which is certain that such an office with such a population needs an experienced person to manage the school in an effective manner (Azizi, 2016: 215).
3- The ability to recognize, judge and make decisions to solve problems
Correct diagnosis is the prelude to correct judgment and decision
making. This characteristic also depends on the knowledge and experience of managers. As much as knowledgeable and experienced a manager is, he would be equally successful in identifying problems, judging and making decisions, and solving problems, which is one of the important tasks of management.
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ISSN: 2181-1385 ISI: 0,967 | Cite-Factor: 0,89 | SIS: 1,9 | ASI: 1,3 | SJIF: 5,771 | UIF: 6,1
3- Characteristics of the manager's power
The third characteristic related to the personality characteristics of the principal is the use of power tools that are available to the principals and affect the work of school management quantitatively and qualitatively. Knowledgeable and experienced managers can use those tools skillfully in their administration. This power tool includes the following:
1- Reward power
The use of this rewarding power in the school can keep the motivation and activity of every member of the school alive, such as head teachers, teachers, students, and other administrative and service employees of the school, and it plays a role in the mobility of every member of the school. When school administrators do justice in rewarding and praising every member of the office who has done the most and best work and activity, it would be very effective in managing the school.
The use of this authority has a positive effect on the activities of school employees in two ways. In one aspect, a person who is praised or rewarded is encouraged and the motivation for work and activity increases in him and makes this person do his work and activities better than before. On the other hand, when this mentality is found among the school members that the manager praises and commends the person who has really done his work well and there is no prejudice and discrimination in this field, healthy competition will be created between the employees. This method of competition, in addition to creating good relations, love and intimacy between employees, it causes better performance in the school (Shariatmadari, 2013: 239 and 324).
2- The power of coercion
Another tool that managers can use to improve the work performance of employees in an office is the power of coercion. The use of coercive power can be used by school administrators in situations where teachers and administrative staff of the school refuse to comply with the rules and do not do the work they are responsible for or are absent from duty. Then the managers can use this source of power with its hierarchy to order the administrative and work affairs in the form of specifying the presence of the violator, deduction of salary, conversion and dismissal. In this way, people obey out of fear and do not fail in doing their work, and improvement in the work of the administration can be seen
(Alagheh Band, 2014: 145).
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ISSN: 2181-1385 ISI: 0,967 | Cite-Factor: 0,89 | SIS: 1,9 | ASI: 1,3 | SJIF: 5,771 | UIF: 6,1
3- The power of law
Another tool that managers use to improve the work and activities of the department is the power that the law has given to the manager. In every country, there are principles and rules for work, and the managers are the implementers of these rules and can use these principles and rules for a better order of work and activities of the office and force the employees to obey the law and deal with the violators legally. It is certain that there are principles and rules for human education in the formal education of every country, and the implementation of these principles and rules by the school principal can play a significant role in the effectiveness of management work in the school and can make the education and learning of students more qualitative.
B- Management skills
As we mentioned above, two general factors play a role in effective school management, one of which was the manager's personality traits that were discussed. The second characteristics of general effective factors in the school management is to have management skills.
1- Skills in creating a suitable working environment
One of the effective factors in the effectiveness of the activities of the office staff is the manager's skills in creating favorable and suitable working conditions. Employees want a job that has suitable and favorable conditions; has a democratic environment in which compassion, philanthropy, social justice equality, a pleasant work environment in which they could feel comfortable and be a useful member. School administrators can create a green and clean environment in the school that has clean classrooms, and assign teachers based on their capacity and abilities in the classes and topics (subjects) for teaching. By doing this, the managers should provide suitable working environment so that they get encouraged to their works.
2- Skills of making school employees aware of educational goals
One of the effective factors in creating effective management in the school is the skill of the manager, in informing the school staff, including teachers, students, administrative and service employees, of educational and educational goals. Being aware of the goals of each work has a great impact on creating more motivation and mobility, planning, choosing the way and the methods to reach the goal. When the goal of educational and training activities is clear for every teacher, student, and
administrative and service staff of the school, they can
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think better about the educational and training goals that are the common goal and try to achieve it.
On the other hand, being aware of the educational and training goals gives the employees the feeling that they are involved in determining the policy of the school's activities and feel responsible in the effort to realize the school's plan and consider themselves partners in the results of the goals. This awareness can be done through radio and television, publications, installing and publishing posters on the walls of schools, conferences and creating a committee in this field (Hassanzadeh, 1401: 134).
3- Skills creating feeling of interest of employees towards their work
One of the factors playing a role in improving management work is the manager's skills in keeping the employees' interest alive. Work and activities in the school are effective when every member of the school has interest towards their duties and work. Interest in work is created when managers respect the rules in dividing tasks and expect everyone according to their knowledge and experience, determine the duties of employees according to their physical and professional abilities, their mistakes should not be regarded as a sin; rather, they should take lessons and experience from it, so the mistakes should not be repeated. Another thing that is very important in this field is that the managers should not discriminate, because discrimination is completely contrary to the expectations of honest services. Therefore, do not destroy the work motivation of the employees by making unnecessary distinctions. They should try to make the relations between the employees friendly and mutual respect.
Skills of the principals that play a role in the effectiveness of schoolwork and the achievement of educational goals are skills in the dimensions of the principal's duties, which rely on the managerial knowledge of principals. If the school administrators have skills and knowledge in this field, they can improve the school's work and increase the quality of education in the school.
Conclusion
From the topics of this article, it can be concluded that school leadership and management play an essential role in the quality of teachers' work and students' learning. The success rate of school managers depends on two general factors, which are the manager's personality traits and management skills. If the school principals have problems in terms of personality traits or do not have the
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necessary skills mentioned in this article, then they cannot bring positive and effective changes in improving the administrative, curricular and order situation of schools, to ensure quality education, which is the main goal of the school. The following suggestions will help in improving this situation.
School administrators should appoint teachers to teach subjects in classes with the principle of meritocracy and distribute duties and privileges with fairness and create a suitable work environment for teachers and other employees so that every member of the school is satisfied with their work and duties.
School principals should not neglect their managerial duties and perform their activities with a regular planning in various fields such as finance, human resources, development, etc., so that the needs of human resources can be taken care of in a timely manner. To not disturb their work and activities.
School principals should try to consult with other teachers and employees in the major and basic tasks of the school. On the one hand, consultation makes them choose the best ways to do the work, and on the other hand, every member of the department considers themselves involved in this decision and tries to achieve that goal.
School managers should monitor and control the educational and work activities of teachers and other school employees on a daily basis should and advise them on their work problems.
REFERENCES
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6. Alaqehaband, Ali. (2014). public Management. Tehran: Ravan Publishing.
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7. Alaqehaband, Ali. (2014). The basics of educational management. Tehran: Ravan Publishing.
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