Leadership and Management in Rural Contexts - Essay Example

Leadership and management in rural contexts Name: Professor: Institution: Course: Date: Introduction As problems in resources and capital rises in the rural schools, measures to overcome the crisis have been looked at so as to come with methods which will cater for the students, parents and community welfare. To solve these problems, school managements has been joining hands from different schools in rural areas. This has led to cluster of schools working together with a common goal. Their efforts have led to creation of educational collaborative and partnership with community to help in cost cutting and increasing the benefits to stakeholders. When these schools work together in clusters, major issue of leadership and management required comes into context. Leadership is an important organisational concept which plays an important role in type of management and administration that is in an institution. Having an organized and effective leadership is a major aspect of performing schools. This is especially in small rural schools context where the management is continually faced with challenges of continuous improvement. In the social perspective, the rural schools have a vital role in development of social capital. These schools form an important part of community infrastructure due to the role they play with families of students and social agencies (Wildy & Clarke, 2005). Statement of purpose The purpose of this essay is to explain how small schools in rural areas can work together in clusters using strategies of collaborative and school-community based leadership to improve productivity. Thesis statement Small rural schools utilize good leadership and management skills and work together in groups to increase their resources and options for students and families. This has been achieved by looking at collaborative educational services and school-community based leadership approach in rural schools. The essay has ascertained that good management and leadership can optimize benefits from working together of rural schools. Definition of term While there exist various definitions for the term collaborative educational services, this paper will use the definition as suggested by Notman (2010) who saw it to mean pooling together of resources by various schools management for paying their services and working together. Collaborative educational services For rural schools, a collaborative educational service is an important management decision. Clustering together of rural primary schools leads to collaborative programs that helps in reducing cost for providing services in these schools. Use of school collaborative services helps in increasing the rural schools capacity and also creating economies of scale (Notman, 2010). The main goals for setting the collaborative program are to increase the capacity for supporting the instruction and lower the operating as well as administrative costs. This is achieved through economies of scale. Other benefits of rural schools working together includes; pooling together of resources in purchasing of office supplies, software, fuel, electricity and natural gas. One of the avenues where rural schools lose a lot of revenue is in transport arrangements. Each of the school management plans on the way to transport their students. The school leadership spends million dollars annually in these transport arrangements. Using the collaborative educational services, the schools can be able to make a group arrangement and reduce their transportation cost. Cost sharing has many aspects which range from training of staff to support services such as grant and communication. The financial burden is reduced for rural schools which not only benefits the schools but also students and their families (Wright, 2007). Issues from collaborative educational services The schools that are in a cluster should be able to share the program equally. This is an issue that should be looked at while carrying out collaborative educational services. Different rural schools spend different amount of cash on services such as technology, transportation, data collection, and professional recruitment. This leads to a situation where the schools need equitable share of services depending on their contribution (Wright, 2007). Using the cost sharing approach, the collaborative service brings the issue of quality. The services offered through collaborative efforts should be able to uphold quality. This means that what the collaborative education services offer should be of higher quality than what the rural schools can provide themselves (Wright, 2007). The cost sharing programs should be able to come up with services that are efficient and of higher quality. School community based leadership Another aspect of leadership in rural schools that can benefit the student as well as community is clustering the schools through community based leadership. This can be done by utilising partnership and good relationship with community around the schools. For the management plan to be successful confidence, competence, openness must be there. These attributes are vital for they bear into enabling means. Confidence has three fundamental dimensions. The first dimension is self-confidence. This is based on one being well versed with the activity as well as foresight that can help the schools in the future (Wright, 2007). The second aspect of confidence is concerned with parents, staff and community. The leader of the rural schools must be able to value the parents’, teachers and community. This is due to the fact that the three groups work with curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation which are most powerful communication systems. Having confidence with them will make management easier. The last dimension of confidence lies with students. The leader must create confidence with the students by making them optimistic about their future. The resultant students will be easier to engage by teachers and hence it will be possible to carry out the change (Notman, 2010). Another attribute for successful management of rural school through community based partnership is competence. Implementing change to community partnership in school management brings disruptions to the already established system. To avoid failure of new management, a competence leader should hold fast to leadership as well as management practices that are well researched on (Penlington, Kington & Day, 2008). Through partnership with the community, the school management in the rural areas is able to get support from the community. This is due to complementarities brought about by coming together and combining individual strengths. The combined efforts of the school and the community forms strong entity which can be able to overcome any difficulty. The process of making decisions becomes more comprehensive, rewarding and valid judgments are made possible. School and community partnership is an important way in which rural renewal can be managed effectively (Strike, 2008). Change from traditional leadership Traditional leadership in small rural schools has been taken as a position instead of a process (Stapleton, 2010). These schools have a tendency to take the principal as the central figure who is the supervisor. The rest of the school has to look up to the way in which he leads so as to imitate. Having this approach makes the leadership to be referring to a person. The fact that all responsibilities of heading the institution are left to one central figure leads to lack of distributed leadership in the rural schools. In this leadership perception, most of the principal targets their efforts in the holistic learner’s development. This leads to the school principal having a lot of work as teachers expect him to prepare lesson and work plans (Wilson & Brundrett, 2005). This sort of centralised leadership has made many of rural school fail in their performance. Change from traditional leadership and management approach is required to help the schools in the rural schools areas to benefit students as well as society. This can be done by the rural schools working together in implementing sustainable management and leadership. By having two or more schools coming together and collaborate in implementing sustainable management, the school as well as society is strengthened. Sustainable leadership lasts and matters in the school development as well as society involved (Thrupp, 2010). Effective leadership approach in small rural schools Instructional leadership is an important aspect that rural schools should apply to maintain effectiveness. Being schools drawn from rural context, the type of leadership is different from those drawn from other context. Various researches that have been carried out have established that leadership is determined by the context (Leithwood, Harris & Hopkins, 2008). The cultural, demographic and social factors of the area a school is located determines number of students enrolled as well as type of leadership. The school heads are held accountable of performance of their schools due to believe that their leadership is what matters in the institution performance. This is because the principals are linked to the student’s administration in both rural and urban setting. Conclusion As schools in rural areas seek ways to maintain their integrity and be cost effective in their management, there is need for them to cluster together due to benefits involved. The benefits of clustering and applying management skills that is sustainable to rural schools benefits the students, parents and society through cost cutting and renewal of rural areas. Parents and students are the major beneficiaries of the system. Working together of schools in rural areas by several methods such as collaborative educational services and school community based leadership should be utilised. Collaborative educational services has been seen as a major help to the parents and schools due to cost cutting and high quality services that are availed through the system. Clustering of these rural schools requires the leadership to be sustainable so as to get the required benefits from the efforts and a change from traditional leadership. It’s clear from the aspects of management that I have given that it’s possible to gain a lot from working together of rural schools, but still a lot need to be looked at in terms of issues that may arise in this type of management. References Leithwood, K., Harris, A & Hopkins, D 2008, Seven strong claims about successful school Leadership, School Leadership and Management, vol. 28, no. 1, p. 27-42 Notman, R 2010, Joining leadership and classroom pedagogies: A review of the best evidence synthesis iteration [BES], Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice, vol. 25, p. 11-21. Penlington, C. K., Kington, A., & Day, C. 2008, Leadership in improving schools: A qualitative perspective, School Leadership and Management, vol. 28, p. 65-82. Stapleton, J 2010, The rural schooling scenario, Education Today, vol. 10, p. 9-11. Strike, K 2008 Small schools: Size or community? American Journal of Education, Vol. 114, no. 3, p. 169-190. Thrupp, M 2010, Not so scholarly but certainly on-message: The Leadership BES and Its significant silences, Journal of Educational Leadership Policy and Practice, vol. 25, p. 4-10 Wildy, H & Clarke, S 2005, Leading the small rural school: The case of the novice principal, Leading & Managing, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 43-56. Wilson, E & Brundrett. M 2005, Leading the small rural primary school: The challenges of headship, Education, vol. 33, no. 3, p. 3-13. Wright, K 2007, Reenergizing small communities: A vital role for rural schools, The Educational Forum, vol. 71, p. 345-361. Read More