Course: School Administration and Supervision (8616)

Level: B.Ed (1.5 Years) Semester: Autumn, 2022

ASSIGNMENT No. 1

Q.1 What are administrative role and responsibility? Also describe

the scope of educational administration.

Office activities and operations to secure efficiency and

compliance to company policies.

Performance.

Job brief.
We are looking for a reliable Office Administrator. They will undertake
administrative tasks, ensuring the rest of the staff has adequate support to work
efficiently.

The tasks of the office administrator will include bookkeeping and mentoring
office assistants. The ideal candidate will be competent in prioritizing and
working with little supervision. They will be self-motivated and trustworthy.
The office administrator ensures smooth running of our company’s offices and
contributes in driving sustainable growth.

Responsibilities
∙ Coordinate office activities and operations to secure efficiency and compliance
to company policies.
∙ Supervise administrative staff and divide responsibilities to ensure
performance ∙ Manage agendas/travel arrangements/appointments etc.
For the upper management.
∙ Manage phone calls and correspondence (e-mail, letters, packages etc.)
∙ Support budgeting and bookkeeping procedures
∙ Create and update records and databases with personnel, financial and other
data ∙ Track stocks of office supplies and place orders when necessary
∙ Submit timely reports and prepare presentations/proposals as assigned
∙ Assist colleagues whenever necessary

Requirements and skills

∙ Proven experience as an office administrator, office assistant or relevant role
∙ Outstanding communication and interpersonal abilities
∙ Excellent organizational and leadership skills
∙ Familiarity with office management procedures and basic accounting
principles ∙ Excellent knowledge of MS Office and office management software
(ERP etc.) ∙ Qualifications in secretarial studies will be an advantage
∙ High school diploma; BSc/BA in office administration or relevant field is
preferred.

Q.2 Elaborate different levels of administration with reference to an

educational institution. What are the school head’s’
responsibilities?

The educational administrator’s job is to keep the school’s entire process

running smoothly by making decisions that help students learn more effectively.
The administrator defines and articulates a school’s mission and goals, then
implements programmes, delegates work, and allocates resources to make them
a reality. A good educational administrator is imaginative, collaborative, and
enthusiastic about the area.
The Function of Educational Administration:
Whether she’s known as the superintendent, head of school, president, or
principal, the institution’s senior administrator is the equivalent of a chief
executive officer in business.

She is involved in personnel matters, budget choices, curriculum development,

and the establishment of policies that will be followed by both staff and
students.
Administrators are in charge of defining the tone of the institution and serving
as its public face. Assistant administrators are frequently employed by school
districts, colleges, and universities to oversee budgets, curriculum, and people.
Other educational administrators operate in governmental and commercial
agencies and organizations in research and policy-making capacities, where
students are rarely present.

Importance of Educational Administration/Management (Degrees)

An advanced educational administration degree, such as a Master of Education,
Master of Arts in Educational Leadership, or a Doctor of Education, is often
required of an educational administrator.

The sociology and law of education, educational research, curricular and

instructional methodologies, and leadership and management abilities are often
included in masters in administration programmes.

Advanced study in leadership, educational theory, practice, and planning,

supervisory abilities, research and statistics, and organizational dynamics is
required for a Ph.D Degree.
Types of Educational Administration/Management:
Top 4 Major Types of Educational Management:
Centralized and Decentralized Educational Management:
On the one hand, this type of educational management refers to the
centralization of educational administration, supervision, and control, which
results in educational management, and on the other hand, it refers to the
division and distribution of educational administration, supervision, and control,
which results in educational management.

1. Decentralized educational management is the acknowledged kind of

educational management in today’s modern educational system among these
two types of educational management.

2. Centralized educational management: All kinds of authorities and duties in

regard to educational management are vested in one hand under centralized
educational management. He or she might be a genuine or symbolic leader.

Assume that in the sphere of higher education, the Director, Higher Education is
the true executive head, with complete control over all authorities and
responsibilities. Additional Director, Deputy Director, and Assistant Director
are the other associate officials who keep mute on the subject.

External and Internal Educational Management:

1. External Educational Management:
The components, circumstances, and supporting agencies that give chances and
facilities for the seamless management of educational programmes from an
external perspective are referred to as external management of educational
programmes. External administration of educational programmes refers to the
people or components who are indirectly involved in its management from a
humanitarian standpoint.

2. Internal Educational Management:

Internal Educational Administration refers to the management of any
educational programme entrusted to those who are actively and internally
involved in the program’s management. It refers to the institution’s or school’s
headmaster/principal, as well as other teaching employees, students, and non-
teaching staff.

Democratic Educational Management:

Democracy, as an accepted system, has a significant impact on the construction
of societies since it allows individuals to be placed in a subject position in life.
Furthermore, democracy aids in the transformation of ideologies in a variety of
fields, ranging from law to economics, and from government reform to
everyday life. Many cultures have adopted a democratic atmosphere as a result
of this feature of democracy.

Equality, social and political engagement, freedom of choice through voting, the
abolition of violence as a means of achieving social and political goals, and the
practice of compromise are all characteristics of democracy.

In addition, it comprises the fundamental value of a human being as a human

being, as well as a free environment to maintain that value.

Authoritarian/Autocratic Educational Management

Authoritarian management, like centralized management, has a function to
perform. The concentration of educational management authority and
responsibility in and exercised by a central entity, organization, or agency is
known as centralized management. It indicates that one central agency plans
and directs all policies and programmes.
The primary agency, in this case, might be a single individual or a group of
people known as the “core group.” When all of a person’s or group’s powers
and duties are concentrated in one person or organization, the phrase
authoritarian or autocracy is used.

In this context, it will sufficient to examine authoritarian/autocratic

administration, in which power and control are concentrated in the hands of a
single person, group, or organization. The rights of this management are total
and ultimate, and educational management is monopolistic.

Every area of education is managed by one person under this style of

educational administration. And educational administration becomes
centralized, dominated by bureaucracy, which maintains power by enforcing
severe laws, rules, and regulations.

Q.3 How school heads are responsible in school administration and

discuss their key responsibilities.

Nowhere has the role of school heads been more visible than during the
coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with generalized lockdowns and school
closures in countries all over the world. Not only did they have to co-ordinate
measures to maintain learning continuity during the lockdown and school
closures, but they were also responsible for ensuring a safe learning
environment when schools were allowed to reopen. The latest Education
Indicators in Focus brief places the spotlight on the roles and salaries of school
heads in public institutions, and takes a close look at how their responsibilities,
working time and compensation vary across countries (based on data collected
before the surge of the pandemic).

Good leadership in schools fosters nurturing learning environments that help

children grow and develop. To cultivate such an environment, school heads
must navigate and promote collaboration across the often complex network of
stakeholders: education authorities, teachers, students, parents and local
communities. In a sense, school heads are the glue that holds everyone together.

During the COVID-19 crisis, school heads are expected to be more flexible in
managing school resources to keep up with frequently changing guidelines and
circumstances. Leadership and management have always been the main
responsibilities of school heads: in two-thirds of OECD countries, official
documents explicitly indicate so. School heads have various areas of
responsibilities including human resources, financial resources, educational
activities of students and teachers, external relations, well-being of students and
teachers, and teaching students. During the COVID-19 crisis, they are also
expected to make more complex decisions that were not needed before. For
example, school heads in Chile have been responsible for various arrangements
for school reopening which requires a closer collaboration with many
stakeholders.

The area and extent of responsibilities of school heads defined in official

documents vary across countries. For example, school heads are required to
teach students in slightly less than half of OECD countries and economies at
lower secondary level, though they teach less hours than teachers do. Within a
country, individual school heads may teach even fewer hours or not at all
depending on school characteristics such as size, geographical location and
socio-economic status of the region. The pandemic has extended the actual
scope of their responsibilities in some countries. For instance, school heads in
Norway could decide how to use additional government funding targeted to
help vulnerable students make up for learning loss, through initiatives such as
homework assistance programmes, summer schools and more teacher hires.

The additional workload due to the unfamiliar circumstances brought on by the

pandemic and the increased collaboration among stakeholders may require
school heads to work longer hours than statutory regulations call for (seven to
eight hours a day on average). Financial compensation for overtime is not
always provided. At lower secondary level, only eight OECD and partner
countries offer additional pay to school heads who work longer hours. Instead,
school heads may receive an allowance for outstanding performance, as is the
case in about half of OECD and partner countries. In many of these countries,
eligibility for an outstanding performance allowance is based on students’
performance. However, it may be uncertain how eligibility for this type of
allowance will be determined in the context of school closures, as disruptions
in students’ learning may have deteriorated overall academic performance.

School heads have been under enormous pressure to put together the emergency
response to schooling amidst a pandemic – they need time and energy to
concentrate on the immediate challenges salaries are important to maintain the
attractiveness of school leadership roles. In 2019, lower secondary level school
heads earned 59% more than teachers did, and 38% more than full-time, full-
year workers with tertiary qualification did on average in OECD countries,
though there are variations across countries and across schools. School heads’
salaries are primarily defined within a range (there can be more than one range
in a country based on qualifications) and their actual salaries vary depending on
individual characteristics such as the number of years’ experience, duties
performed, geographical location and socio-economic status of the region.
However, school heads may not always feel their level of compensation
matches their level of responsibilities. On average across the 30 OECD
countries that participated in TALIS 2018, three out of five school heads in
public institutions reported they were not satisfied with their salaries. At a time
when school heads are being asked to take on more responsibilities, a level of
financial compensation similar to previous years may make them feel that their
work is less recognized.

School heads are at the heart of the education system, connecting education
authorities, teachers, students and communities. Like in our own bodies, when
the heart fails, the entire system breaks down. School heads have been under
enormous pressure to put together the emergency response to schooling amidst
a pandemic. In times of crisis, more than ever, they need time and energy to
concentrate on the immediate challenges. This could be done through measures
such as temporarily adjusting school heads’ administrative workloads or
compensating them for the increased volume of work. During difficult times, it
is important that school leaders are encouraged, supported and their efforts
recognized as they play a crucial role in ensuring learning continues, even at a
distance.

Q.4 Write an audit report of an academic institute or an

organization and describe the importance of administrative
evaluation.

Evaluation of students is common. But, evaluation of teachers and

administrators? Yes, that is of importance too in today’s context to evaluate the
performance of the teachers and enable their growth. This will actually enhance
the entire system of schooling.
Teacher training institutes will turn you into a successful teacher no doubt. But
how well you are executing those skills and how well the learners are learning
from you- these can only be understood from your evaluation as a teacher. Post
teacher training courses you might have become an administrator of an
institution instead of becoming a teacher. Even then you need to be evaluated as
that will answer questions like how well are you managing the whole venture?
Are you careful enough about the uplift of the learners and the teachers
simultaneously?

Why is evaluation important

Evaluation helps in a number of things. Evaluation of the whole teaching
process and the administration actually facilitates the complete schooling
system. Besides, it is beneficial for both the learners and the teachers.

Teachers can identify the areas they need more strength in. They can also
recognize their strong areas. Thus correcting the weak points and sharpening the
strong ones, teachers can comprehend their performance.

Evaluation helps to realize whether the teaching method in use is appropriate or

not. Teacher can execute how brilliantly they can approach the learners or
where they need more cooperation from others to keep up with the current
trends.

Evaluation can be a potent tool in pointing out the extent of student

development. This is because the evaluation is aimed entirely towards the
holistic development of the learners.
What does evaluation do?
Evaluation, in simpler terms, gives feedback to the teachers and administrators
regarding their work. It helps them accomplish the peak point of their teaching
capabilities. For administrators, it is how well the administration of the facility
is running is what evaluated.

A well-structured lesson plan is absolutely necessary for teaching in lass.

Evaluation helps to identify whether that is correct choice or needs to be
changes. This makes way for more systematic change in the lesson plan and
facilitates the overall development of the students along with growth of teacher.

If there is a glitch in the lesson plan, evaluation points it out to you. An absence
of proper lesson plan calls for disaster in the teaching process. Evaluation shows
you that too. Thus the overall education system is benefitted.

You can have a professional degree in this. It will clear your concepts about the
variables depending upon which the evaluation is made. Ways that can be
employed to up the performance of teachers and administrators are also taught
in such courses.

In general it is the students who are evaluated strictly enough. This is done to
improve their growth and development. But it is thought that students also have
the rights to give feedbacks about what they feel have been better and what
could have been better.

If any student fails to follow the class and do not find the lesson interesting
he/she might lag behind. It must be kept in mind that not everybody’s capacity
is same.
This will hamper the learning process. Issues like this can be avoided with
evaluation.
With evaluation a school can reach the optimal point of teaching and learning
simultaneously. Evaluation will enhance the growth and development of the
administrator, the teachers and the students. Thus, a holistic development will
take place.

As a teacher evaluation will help you realize the extent of your capabilities. If
you are an administrator, you will get feedbacks and know ways of better school
system management. Remember that experience along with expertise can make
way for satisfactory learning.

Having a professional degree in evaluation along with an international teaching

diploma will help you curve your niche in the academic world of jobs. Be it as a
teacher or an administrator, you are surely going to ace he skill.

Q.5 How can you differentiate between all approaches of

supervision and teaching?

Traditionally, inspection and supervision were used as important tools to ensure

efficiency and accountability in the education system. Later adherents of the
terminologies of inspection and supervision are used by different countries in
different ways. As outlined by Tyagi (2010), inspection is a top-down approach
focused on the assessment and evaluation of school improvement based in
stated standards, whereas supervision focus on providing guidance, support and
continuous assessment to teachers for their professional development and
improvement in their teaching- learning process. Nevertheless, since the
demand of teachers for guidance and support rend from supervisors has
increased from time to time, some countries changed the terminology and
preferring the term “supervisor” over that of “inspector”. According to Grawue
(2007), some countries have recently developed more specific terminologies:
Malawi, uses “education methods advisor”, and Uganda “teacher development
advisor”.

The concepts of “supervision” and “inspection” have been changed frequently

in Ethiopian education system and the reason was not clearly pedagogical. In 19
42, educational inspection was practiced for the first time, then it was changed
to supervision in the late 1960s , again to inspection in mid 1970s and for the
fourth time it shifted to supervision in 1994.

Haile Selassie stated that:

Apart from perhaps political decisions, one could not come up with any sound
educational and pedagogical rationale to justify the continuous shift made in the
name. With the name changes made we do not notice any significant changes in
either the content or purpose and functions.

From 1994 onwards, supervision has been practiced in Ethiopia decentralized

educational management. According to the Education and Training Policy
(1994), educational supervision is recognized at the center (Ministry of
Education), Regional, Zonal, District (Woreda) and School levels. Instructional
supervision at school level is practiced by principals, deputy principals,
department head, and senior teachers.

However, since the Woreda is the lowest administrative level and had a direct
contact with schools, more practical support and guidance are expected from the
Assigned supervisors at this level. As it is clearly mentioned by the Educational
Management, Schools’ Organization, Finance, and Community Participation
Guideline (MoE, 2002), supervisors have the following key responsibilities:

Ensuring whether teacher -student relationship is healthy and democratic,

teachers are properly executing their tasks, education is based on the needs of
students, the relation between schools and community, mobilizing community,
ensure the existence of help and respect sprit between teachers and students,
provide professional support, follow up and training for teachers.

Supervisory Approaches
According to Blasé and Blasé (1998), although many supervisory approaches
are collaborative in nature, for long time, supervisory of instruction has been
viewed exclusively as an inspection issue. Sergiovanni (1992) described
supervision as a “ritual they [supervisors and teachers] participate according to
well established
Scripts without much consequence”. This author continued that “today,
supervision as inspection can be regarded as an artifact of the past, a function
that is no longer tenable or prevalent in contemporary education”. He explained
that though functioned for a considerable span of time, this type of supervision
caused negative stereotypes among teachers, where they viewed as subordinates
whose professional performance was controlled. Supporting this idea, Anderson
and Snyder (1993) stated, “because of this, teachers are unaccustomed to the
sort of mutual dialogue for which terms like mentoring, peer coaching collegial
assistance are coming in to use”
It should be clear, however, that traditional supervisory approaches should not
be removed completely because supervisory authority and control are essential
for professional development. Mitchell and Sackney (2000) explained this as
“much of past practice is educationally sound and should not be discarded”.
Having said this, it is important to differentiate instructional supervision from
evaluation. Authors described the former as a formative approach and the later
as a summative approach. Poole (1994) stated that “instructional supervision is
a formative process that emphasizes collegial examination of teaching and
learning”. In this regard, participants in the supervision process plan and
implement a range of professional growth opportunities designed to meet
teacher’s professional growth and educational goals and objectives at different
levels. Teacher evaluation, on the other hand, is “a summative process that
focus on assessing the competence of teachers, which involves a formal, written
appraisal or judgment of an individual’s professional competence at specific
time”. The supervisory (formative) and evaluative (summative) processes
should go hand in hand. While supervision is essential for teachers’ professional
growth, evaluation is essential to determine this growth and teacher
effectiveness.

The widely used approaches to evaluation are administrative monitoring, report

writing, checklists, and self-assessment. On the other hand, approaches to
supervision are categorized as clinical supervision, peer coaching, cognitive
coaching, mentoring, self-reflection, professional growth plans, and portfolios.
Implementing different supervisory approaches is essential not only to give
choices to teachers; it is also important to provide choices to the administrators
and schools. Each component of supervisory approaches are discussed as
follows.

Clinical Supervision
According to Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007), clinical supervision is a “face- to
face contract with teachers with the intent of improving instruction and
increasing professional growth”. It is a sequential, cyclic and systematic
supervisory process
Which involves face-to-face interaction between teachers and supervisors
designed to improve the teacher’s classroom instructions. The purpose of
clinical supervision according to Snow-Gerono (2008) is “to provide support to
teachers (to assist) and gradually to increase teachers’ abilities to be self-
supervising”. Clinical supervision is a “specific cycle or pattern of working
with teachers”. It is a partnership in inquiry where by the person assuming the
role of supervisor functions more as an individual with experience and insight
than as an expert who determines what is right and wrong (Harris, 1985). Gold
hammer, Anderson and Karjewski (1980) described the structure of clinical
supervision that includes pre observation conference, class room observation,
analysis and strategy, supervision conference, and post-conference analysis.
Clinical supervision is officially applicable with: inexperienced beginning
teachers, teachers are experiencing difficulties, and experienced teachers who
are in need of improving their instructional performance.

Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007) stated that clinical supervision is typically

formative than summative in its evaluative approach in order to enable
beginning teaches “collaborate to research their practices and improve their
teaching and learning”. As a result of this, the writers further described that the
focus of clinical supervision is not on quality control, rather on the professional
improvement of the teacher that guarantees quality of teaching and students’
performance.

Collaborative Supervision
Collaboration and collegially are very important in today’s modern schools.
According to Burke and Fessler (1983), teachers are the central focuses of
collaborative approach to supervision. Collaborative approaches to supervision
are mainly designed to help beginning teachers and those who are new to a
school or teaching environment with the appropriate support from more
experienced colleagues. Thus, these colleagues have an ethical and professional
responsibility of providing the required type of support upon request. In this
regard, a teacher who needs collegial and collaborative support should realize
that “needs do not exist for professional growth, that feedback from colleagues
and other sources should be solicited in order to move toward improvement”
The major components of collaborative approaches to supervision which are
especially needed for beginner or novice teachers are: peer coaching, cognitive
coaching and mentoring.

Peer coaching
Peer coaching, according to Sullivan and Glanz (2000), is defined as “teachers
helping teachers reflect on and improve teaching practice and/or implement
particular teaching skills needed to implement knowledge gained through
faculty or curriculum development”. The term coaching is introduced to
characterize practice and feedback following staff development sessions.
According to Singhal (1996), supervision is more effective if the supervisor
follows the team approach. This would mean that the supervisor should have a
clear interaction with teachers and group of teachers, provide an open, but
supportive atmosphere for efficient communication, and involve them in
decision making.

The goal of coaching as described by Sergiovanni and Starratt (2007), is to

develop communities within which “teachers collaborate to honor a very simple
value- when we learn together, we learn more, and when we learn more, we will
more effectively serve our students” Thus, peer coaching provides possible
opportunities to beginner teachers to refine teaching skills through collaborative
relationships, participatory decision making, and immediate feedback. In this
regard, research findings showed that beginning teachers rated experienced
teachers who coached than as highly competent and the process itself as very
necessary.

Cognitive coaching
According to Costa and Garmston (1994), cognitive coaching refers to “a
nonjudgmental process built around a planning conference, observation, and a
reflecting conference”. Cognitive coaching differs from peer coaching in that
peer coaching focuses on innovations in curriculum and instructions, whereas
cognitive coaching is aimed at improving existing practices. As Beach and
Reinhartz (2000) described, cognitive coaching pairs teacher with teacher,
teacher with supervisor, or supervisor with supervisor, however, when two
educators are in similar roles or positions, the process is referred as peer
supervision. The writers further identified three components of cognitive
coaching: planning, lesson observation, and reflection.

Costa and Garmston (1994) described three basic purposes of cognitive

coaching, namely:
(1) Developing and maintaining trusting relationship;
(2) Fostering growth toward both autonomous and independent behavior; and
(3) Promoting learning. In a cognitive coaching process, teachers learn each
other, built mutual trust, and encouraged to reach at a higher level of autonomy-
the ability to self-monitor, self-evaluate, and self-analyze.

Mentoring
Mentoring as defined by Sullivan and Glanz (2000) is “a process that facilitates
instructional improvement wherein an experienced educator agrees to provide
assistance, support, and recommendations to another staff member”. Mentoring
is a form of collaborative (peer) supervision focused on helping new teachers or
beginning teachers successfully learn their roles, establish their self-images as
teachers figure out the school and its culture, and understand how teaching
unfolds in real class room. Sullivan and Glanz (2000) stated the works of
mentors as:
The mentor can work with a novice or less experienced teacher collaboratively,
nonjudgmentally studying and deliberating on ways instruction in the class
room may be improved, or the mentor can share expertise in a specific area with
other educators. Mentors are not judges or critics, but facilitators of
instructional improvement. All interactions and recommendations between the
mentor and staff members are confidential.