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Responsibilities are often confused in schools systems. The usual reasons include
- different and conflicting agendas impacting in various parts of
the system
- administrators are aiming to serve their masters and keep schools running smoothly (without public problems)
- politicians are aiming to serve their constituencies which almost never include the students -
- teachers are trying to serve both their supervisors and their students
- different people operating on different paradigms of what schools and education are all about.
Responsibility & authority
To be reasonable responsibility must be matched by the
necessary authority. Responsibility is often about who should prevent
& solve problems. Authority is part of one's capacity to act to
prevent & solve problems.
Confusion about responsibilities naturally leads to confusion about authority.
As a result matches between responsibility and authority are very common in schooling. Where there is a mismatch impossible situations arise.
The following diagram outlines one overview of the distribution of responsibilities in schooling:
NB. About resources Staff, facilities, equipment and operating finances are not the only forms of 'resources'. A huge proportion of the resources available to school systems go un-noticed and un-managed.
Information, eg, curriculum, regulations, agreements, details of strategies and processes that have worked well elsewhere, is a vital resource.
Other essential resources include good will, cooperation, shared values and purposes, time, support, guidance, encouragement and assistance with problem solving and prevention as well as a whole range of tools to process information for the purposes of planning, managing, assessing, continuous improvement...,