A school comes into being through the process of organising. Then comes its administration.

Running or
functioning of the school is the job of the head of tire institution. 'This does not mean that only the Head
and none else is responsible for adminisiriition. In fact, administration is a job of many minds and many
heads. All combined into one. The Head of the institution is the leader who is to make aU 9 other follow
him. Thus educational administration is more or less a co-operative undertaking.

Education administration has been defined variously. Some of the important definitions are given
below :

Campbell, Corably and Ramesyer observe in Introduction to Educational Administration that the
educational administration “consists of facilitating the development of goals and policies basic to
teaching and learning, stimulating the development of appropriate programmes for teaching and
learning and procuring and managing personnel and material to implement teaching and learning.”

According to National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) “Educational Administration is a social
statemanship which guides educational activities, plans, programmes mid facilities, and provides
leadership in a long-term but broad social perspective.”

The Encyclopedia of Education (1971) by IEEC. Deighton States, “Educational Administration is

SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Education is one of the hugest enterprises undertaken foi the purpose of the development and gorwth
of the individual and to meet the needs of Society. It involves the activity of a large number of people -
students, teachers, parents and the public. For such a big enterpirse we need a sound machinery to run
it and effective principles to secure efficiency. There is need for the co-operative activity of all
participants in the educative process for the achievement of its goals. It is the task of administration to
set up such machinery and make it work smoothly and effectively. The scope of educational
administration therefore extends to a vast area and a large variety of activities.

Sears’ Scope of Educational Administration

1. Establishing educational purpose, by expressing them in the form of aims and the programme of work
in order to accomplish them, i.e., laying oat the work of the organisation.

2. Provision and development of the personnel and necessary financees, housing; materials and facilities
for cnrrying out the work of the organisation, i.e., mobilising resources of men and materials for the
realisation of the aims of education.

3. Laving down procedures and techniques for the performance of the work and the policies and plans
to guide the work, i.e., the curriculum and methods of teaching and supervision.

4. Defining the nature and procedure of use of authority (legal, official and personal) and control
(scientific and democratic) by which the administrative process will operate.

5. Deciding the nature of aims and procedures by which the administrative process will operate.

6. Deciding the mechanism (structure and relationships) by which authority and power are applied in the
administrative process.
From the above discussion we find that the scope of educational administration is very wide and
extends over many fields. When the process starts working numerous problems arise and have to be
solved on the basis of a broad social perspective and the 18 nation’s way of life. In view of the
innumerable activities that have to be performed by educational administration its scope may be
broadly classified and delineated under the following areas:

1. Legal Structure refers to the laws that have to be passed i i and rules and regulations have to be
framed in order to determine the i agencies of eduction, their types, powers and standards of
educational institutions to be run by them, to prescribe authority end control, to fix up responsibility
and obligations, to decide the question of decentralisation of management and to set up organisational
and administrative machinery.

2. Pupils. Children are the centre of the educational enterprise. It is for them that the entire process of
education and its constituents exist. It is therefore necessary to determine the individual and social
purposes and procedures of their education in accordance with their needs, interests and capacities and
the demands of society. Rules far their admission, promotion, discipline, etc., have to be framed and
implemented.

3. Personnel To run educational activities necessary and adequate man-power has to be found and
engaged. Personnel plays the key-role in education. This is the fly-wheel or the driving force of the
educational machinery. Proper attention has to be paid to the 19 workers. Men and women have to be
selected, recruited and trained and their qualifications and standards have to be prescribed. Good
service conditions like attractive salaries, security of tenure, welfare service and retirement benefits
have to be offered to bring in the best available talent. Schemes for their direction, guidance and
supervision have to be drawn up. Last but not the least, a good and effective programme for the
workers’ continuous development and professional progress through reorientation and in-service
education has to be launched.

4. Finance is an important area which includes problems of income and expenditure and their
accounting and auditing. Decisions have to be taken about the sharing of the cost of education by the
centre and the States and the Local Bodies. The policy of taxation and prescribing fees, etc., has to be
formulated. Rules and regulations have to be framed for budgeting, spending and controlling of funds
and resources,

5. Curriculum is the means of achieving the goals of education. Educational administration has to deal
with the problem of curriculum construction and its day to day development. It has also to look after the
continuous evaluation and progressive improvement of the educational programme which are urgently
called for in view of 20 the constantly going on scientific, technological and social changes.
Administration has to pay close attention to the teaching-learnmg programmes and processes and also
to other instructional material. Important pupil services, such as health and recreation and psychological
services of testing and records, guidance and t councelling and co-cuiricular activities, etc., have to be
organised and administered for the benefit of the young.

6. Physical Facilities comprise the area dealing with the problem of provision and maintenance of the
school plant equipment and supplies, their production, purchase, upkeep and accounting.

7. Public Relation. Education is a social enterprise run with the cooperation of students, teachers,
parents and the community. Educational administration has to make each of them contribute its due
share to the success of the enteiprise. It should, therefore, maintain effective pubhc relations. Phis
involves maintenance of records, issuing periodical reports, information and bulletins about past
achievement and future proposals. Administration should encourage community visitation, and secure
its participation and cooperation by a process of give and take, i.e., by utilising community resources and
rendering useftil services for its welfare.
It is necessary to add a work of caution here. The above list and categorisation are only suggestive and
not exclusive. They are not arranged in any priority order, as all of them are equally necessary and
important. The analysis has been made only for the sake of convenience of discussion and all the
different areas of scope should be viewed with an approach to integration.

FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

In the Fortyfifth Year book are mentiond the following functions of educational administration:

1. To delegate authority and responsibility.

2. To strengthen local initiative and local control.

3. To secure the greatest return from the money spent.

4. To secure the goodwill of personnel, public education department and other social agencies and
institutions.

5. To implement a democratically determined programme.

6. To determine policies and to implement them.

7. To utilise maximally the special capacities of the personnel and the material resources.

8. To integrate the units concerned with the same problems or areas

Jease B. Sears defines the subject matter of the field of educational administration as activities given
below:

1. Establishing educational purpose by expressing them in the form of aims and a program of work to be
accomplished, e.g., laying out its work.

2. Development and organisation of a personnel and the necessary finances, housing, materials and
facilities for carrying on the work.

3. Procedures and techniques for the performance of tire work, including the policies and the plans to
guide it.

4. Nature and use of the authority (legal, scientific, social and personal) by which administration
operates.

5. Origin and nature of the aims and processes by which administration operates.

6. Nature of the mechanism by which authority and knowledge are applied in the process of
administration.

Of these six items the fast three are related to the practice of administration, while the latter three have
with theory or philosophy underlying practices.

Russell T. Gregg describes the administrative process as having seven functions or components : decision
making; planning : organizing ; communicating ; influencing ; coordinating ; and evaluating.

The researcher feels that a long list of the functions of educational administration can be prepared and
yet would remain inexhaustive. And hence the researcher believed that a fruitful exercise would be to
classify the functions under some broad categories like purposes, planning, organising, operating and
evaluating. These five functions should be looked upon as stages in the administrative process but it
must be remembered that they ers not isolated activities. They often overlap and always produce results
cumulatively.
ROLE OF THE PRINCIPAL

Every principal is first of all a teacher and then an adniinistrator. He holds the key position in the school.
We can hardly i think of any organisation without a leader. “As is the headmaster, so will be the school”,
is an important saying. When we enter some school, we can at once form an opinion about the
administrator of that school - his work, quality of his work, etc. The character of the school reflects and
proclaims the character of the headmaster. Good or bad school depends upo the headmaster. He should
act as the leader of the team of teachers working with him, seeking their co-operation and also giving
full help to them as and when I needed.

Thus we find that the headmaster holds the key position in the school. He is the director, co-ordinator,
evaluator, organiser and above all, the administrator of the whole school system.' On the one I hand he
is to obey the Education Department, the Managing f Committee or the controlling authority and on the
other hand he is to i make others obey his. He is the chief inter-linking source between the school and
the community. He succeeds in doing so by establishing i i 74 good relationship with parents of the
children, the community in general and the different organisations working in the community.