Catholic School Governance Analysis - Essay Example

? EDLE 639: Assignment Analysis of School Governance Introduction In the year 2000, there were total 429 catholic secondary schools on Australia.Out of them, 283 schools were run by regional, diocesan and parish catholic education authorities and rest of the schools were run by religious congregations. The essay will discuss about the school governance. There are five indigenous community schools in the Australian Northern territory. These schools have different administrative systems. In addition, these schools do not follow western corporate governance. Therefore, it can be stated that the number of regional, diocesan and parish secondary schools are 278. There are huge differences between the State Catholic Education Offices and various types of school boards. Discussion This part of the essay will discuss about the governance that is maintained by the Catholic Schools. Moreover, it will evaluate the practice and challenges of leadership management. Governance Governance is the new term in the circle of Catholic Education. This term has achieved huge acceptance since last ten years. Governance can be referred as the exercise of the control or authority which can be referred as the management practice. Governance of a school is all about the moral and legal responsibility for overall stewardship of the school. Governance of a school helps the institution to decide its mission, vision and institutional value. Generally, governance follows federal and state civil law (Leavey, 2000). Effective governance helps to protect financial stability and accountability of an organization or an institution. However, governance of a particular catholic school basically implies the above aspects. However, the governance of Catholic Schools needs extra foundational principles and dimensions. According to the Vatican documents, the Catholic Schools are the part of Church’s teaching mission. The operation of the governance entails a suitable theology of ministry, an appropriate ecclesiology and a clear understanding of scripture regard to the authority and community (Cadwell & Spinks, 2008). It highly involves the issues of the church and canon law. It determines the importance of stable differences between several civil laws. According to the present Canon law, only a parish, religious or bishop order can open a Catholic school. Several analysis have been done in order to understand the applied the governance model of several Catholic schools. At the moment 18 catholic schools are following shared ownership model. This model is highly effective and can maintain organization environment. However, effective governance needs to be developed and followed by the institutions (Chait, Ryan &Taylor, 2004). It can maintain the stability of the institution. There are different ways to understand the concept of governance. Several writers have presented different models of corporate governance. These are structural model of governance, ownership model of governance, the holistic model of governance and the functional model of governance. The characteristics of the ownership model of governance have been discussed below. According to the ownership model of governance, the ownership is shared in a Catholic school between a diocese and congregation. In this model the ownership remains within the diocese and congregation. In case of rising conflicts the decisions are taken by the two parties and so there is less chance of getting exploited. Therefore this model can be effective in school governance practice which will contribute in drawing efficient management practices as well as deal with the challenges of leadership. The impact of governance on the board is the reflection of the local state or congregation Catholic education policy. However, John carver, Mary Benet McKinsey, Kathryn Grent and Patricia Vandenberg are the four writers who influenced the school board movement in Australia (NCEC, 2002). Catholic schools in Australia maintain government regulations based on policies and laws developed by churches. Governance in an Australian Catholic school involves several gospels understanding that are not present in the secular model. It can be stated that the governance of Catholic schools are still lacking of effective policies. Canon Lawand Catholic Social Teachers The purpose of this document is to identify the governance models that have been undertaken by several catholic schools in Australia. Catholic Social Teaching is an important body doctrine introduced by the Catholic Church. This Catholic Social Teaching considers economic, role of states, social organization, and wealth and poverty. The foundations of Catholic Social Teaching are laid by the Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical letter Rerum Novarum. It advocated condemned socialism and capitalism, and economic distribution. There are several aspects of key aspects Canon Law. According to the Canon Law, it is important that the Catholic schools’ structures conform to the Canon Law. Otherwise, it can be confirmed that the schools are not authentically Catholic. Moreover, in this case the schools can be open to the constant dispute. Catholic schools need to follow the rules and policies developed by the Catholic Church (NCEC, 2000). Violation of these rules and policies can damage the relationship between the schools and Catholic Education Commission. According to the Canon Law, the Catholic School should operate the institutional functions and activities under the authority of a religious public authorized person. However, in case of a district, the bishop can be referred as the canonical administrator of that district (Lucas, Slack & D’Apice, 2008). On the other hand, in the case of a specific religious institute, the canonical administrator can be referred as the congregational leader. In terms of parish schools, the parish priest can be referred as the canonical administrator. The fundamental governance feature of a Catholic school is considered as the relationship between the school and an appropriate public juridical individual of the Catholic Education Commission. However, the Catholic school board derives the existence and role from that discussed relationship. However, the relationship manner can be mediated and expressed in diverse practice (Hanks, 1997). It can vary from a district to another district or from a particular religious institute to another religious institute. It can be noted that the relationship between the Catholic School and a public juridical individual does not simply depend upon the property. It is basically spiritual in character. A public juridical individual as a religious institute may or may not be own the property utilized by a specific Catholic school. This type of religious institute can deeply influence that particular Catholic Schools’ special spirituality. This specific guideline and legislative document totally conform to the understanding of the discussed canon Law relationship between schools, boards and public juridical individuals. Generally, the implementation of this Canon Law in this case can come to change (LibreriaEditriceVaticana, 2007). Moreover, this guideline document did not try to preclude the discussion of authentic means of the relationship expression. Challenges of Leadership management It is clear from above discussion that several Catholic Schools in Australia is following different governance model to maintain the stability of the schools and institution. Moreover, they have implemented several leadership strategies to maintain effective governance. Priests are the most involved individuals in prompting the Catholic ethos and identities of schools (Zadja, 2005). Priests and principals consider that it is important for the priests to get actively involved in the decision making process. It is true that majority of the Catholic Schools in Australia is following ownership governance model in which priests are not actively involved in this process. It is true that day-by-day the priests are being removed from the financial decisions activities. Moreover, the principals and management of several schools are controlling the finance and budget related matters (Hunt, Oldenski & Wallace, 2000). The overall delegation picture is constantly changing due to the adaptation of ownership governance model. Several matters of student enrolment and appointment of teaching staff are major criterions of schools. However, in the Archdiocese, priests are involved significantly in the matter of student enrolment (Buchanan, 2013). On the other hand, priests and parish leaders take part in the selection of teaching staff, but they do not interfere in the student enrolment process. Lack of effective collaboration is the biggest drawback of these leadership strategies. Lack of collaboration can develop several misconceptions about the institutional values and missions (Townsend & McBeath, 2011). The following discussion will provide the organization structure of a Catholic Primary School located in New South Wales. The institution needs to start a voting process in order to select teaching staffs and principals. Moreover, the commission or the authority needs to involve priests in the management committee of the institution in order to maintain the value of the education commission and churches. Student enrolment and teacher selection are the major aspects of a school. Parents of the students should be allowed to give vote in order to select a school managing committee. There should be two principals in schools. One of them will control the academic section and other should follow the administrative sector. Maintenance and business services are other major aspects of schools. Therefore, it is important to appoint executives for each of these posts. Lastly, there should be teachers and social workers. The teachers need to be appointed based on the qualification background and teaching experience. On the other hand, Church representatives should be appointed as the social work executives to maintain value and moral. Conclusion It is clear from above discussion highlights the governance practices of the Catholic schools. It is important for the schools to maintain value and moral. Teacher selection and student enrolment are the major criterion of these Catholic schools. Therefore, it is important to change the leadership style and governance model. They need to implement shared ownership governance model (McLaughlin & O’Keefe, 2003). Moreover, the schools should change the organizational structure to maintain the quality of education and discipline. References Buchanan, M. (2013). Leadership and Religious Schools. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. Caldwell, B. J., & Spinks, J. M. (2008). Governance and social capital In Raising the stakes: From improvement to transformation in the reform of schools. Abington OX: Routledge. Chait, R. P., Ryan, W. P., & Taylor, B. E. (2004). First Principles, in Governance as leadership: Reframing the work of non-profit boards.Retrieved from: . Hanks, J. (1997). The Challenges of Sharing Leadership. In J. McMahon, H. Neidhart, and J. Chapman (eds) Leading the Catholic School. Melbourne: Spectrum. Hunt, T., Oldenski, T., & Wallace, T. (2000). Catholic School Leadership. Melbourne: Spectrum. Leavey, C. (2000). School Governance Project for National Catholic Education Commission and Australian Conference Leaders of Religious Institutes. Retrieved from: . LibreriaEditriceVaticana. (2004). Principles of the Church's Social Doctrine. In Compendium of the social doctrine of the church. Strathfield NSW: St Pauls. Lucas, B., Slack, P., & D’Apice, W. (2008). Canon Law in Church Administration Handbook. Strathfield NSW: St Pauls. McLaughlin, T., & O’Keefe, J. (2003). The Contemporary Catholic School. NSW: Routledge. NCEC. (2002). Catholic school governance. Retrieved from: http://www.ncec.catholic.edu.au/pages/images/Governance_Paper.pdf NECC. (2000). Australian Catholic Schools: Why we have them; what they aim to achieve. Retrieved from: Townsend, T., & MacBeath, J. (2011). International Handbook of Leadership for Learning. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. Zajda, J. (2005). International Handbook on Globalisation, Education and Policy. Sydney: Springer. Read More