Major Functions of Administration: Planning in School Management

Major Functions of Administration

• Planning is the process of deciding in advance what needs to be done, charting a course of action for the future, and determining the nature of the educational enterprise.
• A Chinese proverb emphasizes the importance of planning, "If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for 20 years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men!"

Coordinating

• Coordination is achieved through effective communication and good leadership.
• It involves bringing people, materials, ideas, and techniques together to achieve productive relationships.
• The goal of coordination is to make all activities contribute to the realization of the school's aims and objectives.

Supervising

• Supervision involves studying and improving teaching-learning situations.
• It determines whether conditions exist to make the attainment of educational aims possible.
• The fundamental function of supervision is to provide conditions essential to good teaching and learning and to improve them.

Evaluating

• Evaluating determines how well educational purposes have been achieved.
• It includes school surveys and teacher ratings.
• School programs and conditions are evaluated through school surveys.

Providing Leadership

• An administrator should be a professional leader of the teaching staff, working scientifically, conscientiously, and democratically.
• Efficient administration exercises necessary authority and definite responsibility to ensure educational leadership.
• Democratic leadership is needed rather than authoritarian leadership.

Organizing

• Organizing involves defining roles, responsibilities, and arranging and coordinating the resources needed to successfully carry out plans.
• It unifies efforts to get things done.
• Organizing is the activity of arranging and structuring relationships to achieve the goals and objectives of education.

Directing

• Directing involves leading people in a manner that achieves the goals of the organization.
• It involves proper allocation of resources and providing an effective support system.
• Directing includes a myriad of tasks carried out daily by a school administrator, such as determining who shall carry out plans, deciding on subjects to be included in each course, and providing physical equipment necessary to carry out the work.