Chabota, one of our ambassadors, has some great thoughts on the provision and management of education. Awareness of the practical realities of a problem is the first step to tackling it and this is a great starting point!
Education administration and management is the process of how to run the affairs of learning in an institution of learning or how one is able to collaborate with the management. For education in Africa to thrive, it needs good administrators and managers. These include administrators at national level (minister), provincial, district and school administrators (headmasters and headmistresses).
Education administration and management is faced with a numbers of challenges from national to school level. Some of them are as follows.
Pupil management is one of the aspects of education administration. At school level, some heads face poor behavior by some pupils. Although some pupils face challenges like negative peer influence, challenge family background and substance and drug abuse (smoking and beer drinking), it is up to the head teachers to control their behaviour in schools. I think pupil management is vital because it helps maintain the reputation of a school and a country at large; it also helps pupils perform well in their exams.
Another challenge that I think is faced by school administrators is poor communication. Communication can be between teachers and pupils as well as between teachers and parents. It is through good communication that teachers are able to know the problems facing students. But you find that some teachers or school administrator are so harsh to pupils making pupils scared even to ask questions. I think this can be curbed by having regular parent teacher association (PTA) meetings that will help in the administration of learning institutions.
I think financial management is also a big challenge at all levels, especially at national level. It is at national level where everything is planned and implemented. Education administration and management requires leaders with a passion to serve the people but sometimes it is faced with leaders who are greedy, corrupt and selfish. I think constant monitoring by stakeholders such as human rights organizations, the church and other government and non-governmental organisations of how funds are spent can help in making sure that money is used for its intended purpose.
Education is a huge investment that needs the effort of both government and the private sector. Education administration and management is very important for the development of education in any country. For education in Zambia to improve, it needs good administrators.