Institutional Planning

Institutional planning is the process of thinking, deciding and willing so that an institution becomes a model institution according to its purpose. It is a programme of development and improvement prepared by an educational institution on the basis of its felt needs and the resources available or likely to be available with a view to improving the school programmed and school programme and school practices, constitutes a plan for and institution. It is based on the principle of optimum utilization of the resources available in the school and the community.

NEED AND IMPORTANCE OF INSTITUTIONAL PLANNING

1. FOR BETTERMENT AND IMPROVEMENT

All institutions have some plans. All the heads of institutions make plans and each teacher also plans. In fact, each headmaster and teacher does plan but this planning my not be systematic adequate and clear. This planning may not exist in a definite or regular form. Planning may mostly be routine planning of the syllabus time table and examination etc. and it may not exist in a definite or regular form and it may be repeated from term to term and from session to session without much thinking.

2. TO GIVE PROPER DIRECTION TO EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Institutional planning will give you right direction to the educational planning in the country i.e., the upward direction from bottom to top. In the normal trend followed today the direction of planning is from top to bottom. Institutional planning is the recognition of the role of administrator’s teachers, parents, students, educationists and social reformers in the process of planning of education in the country.

3. FOR MAXIMUM UTILIZATION OF RESOURCES

Institutional planning leads to optimum use of the existing resources. As a nation we face a great scarcity of resources with increasing needs and demands from every quarter. Therefore, we must plan for maximum utilization of scarce resource.

4. FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Educational planning must fit into the overall national planning for developmental purposes. As such it gets importance from the need for collective efforts of the people. In the words of B.D. Nag Chaudhari, Since the implementation of plans and programmes is as important and vital as plan formulation. Institutional planning has a special contribution to make in national development.

5. TO ENCOURAGE INITIATIVE OF INDIVIDUAL TEACHER

Institutional plan encourages initiative freedom and creativity of the teacher makes the individual teacher effective. It motivates them too strive harder for achieving excellence. It draws out the best of the teachers.

6. FOR DEMOCRATIZATION OF PLANNING

Institutional planning democratizes the process of planning because it takes into confidence the students the teachers the parents and the head of the institution. Sh.J.P.Naik says, “A major reform, I propose, therefore is that the planning that resembles an inverted pyramid should be broad-based and decentralized by introducing the system of institutional plans.” He strongly planned to have a fine blend of the centralized and decentralized systems of educational planning in our country.

MAJOR OBJECTIVES (PURPOSE) OF INSTITUTIONAL PLANNING

The institutional planning should be based on certain predetermined objectives. All activities planned should help directly or indirectly to achieve these ends. One depending upon the circumstances and needs of the school, the objectives may be short term and long –term.

Following are the same main objectives

Sh.J.P. Naik, Education Advisor, Government of India, has listed the following four objectives of institutional planning:

1. Giving freedom to the teacher.

2. Making the good teacher effective.

3. Involving every teacher in the formulation and implementation of plans.

4. Emphasizing what can be done here and now boy mobilizing our existing resources.

Structure of Educational system in Kerala

Organizational Structure of Department of General Education in Kerala

• The Commissioner of General Education shall be responsible for policy formulation, Monitoring and co-ordination among the Directorates of School Education, State Council of Educational Research and Training, State Institute of Educational Technology, State Institute of Educational Management and Training, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and other institutions in the State that come under General Education.
• The Secretary to Government, General Education shall have administrative control over all the Directorates, Institutes, Schools and other agencies in the State that come under General Education.
• The Director of School Education shall have administrative and academic control over all the schools in the State from the level of Pre-Primary education to Higher Secondary education including Teacher training institutes, Schools for special education, Schools for differently abled children and other agencies as directed by the Government. The Director may be assisted by Additional Directors as shown below:-
• Additional Director for Higher Secondary Education.
• Additional Director for Secondary Education.
• Additional Director for Primary & Pre-Primary Education.
• Additional Director for Public Examinations and Evaluation.
• 4. The Deputy Director of Education shall have administrate and academic control over all types of schools in the Revenue district from the level of Pre-primary education to higher secondary education and other institutes imparting Special Education and training. The Deputy Director of Education may be assisted by 2 or 3 Assistant Directors as shown below.
• Assistant Director for Higher Secondary Education.
• Assistant Director for Primary and Pre-Primary Education.
• Assistant Director for Secondary Education.
• The Block Educational Officer shall have administrative and inspectional control over Primary and Pre primary Schools in the Block. 
• The Principal with the prescribed qualification shall be the head of a Higher Secondary School. The Principal shall be the administrative head of the schools responsible for its proper management and maintenance of discipline. He shall be the drawing and disbursing officer and authority for sanctioning leave.
• There shall be a post of Headmaster in every Higher Secondary School. He shall assist the Principal in the discharge of duties especially with regard to Secondary classes.
• Note:- In the absence of a Principal the Headmaster of the School shall be put in full additional charge of the school as a purely temporary arrangement.
• The Headmaster of Secondary schools designated as Principal of Vocational Higher Secondary shall continue as such, till the Vocational Higher Secondary Education ceases to function.
• The Headmaster with the prescribed qualification shall be the administrative head of the following types of schools: -
• Secondary Schools
• Upper Primary Schools
• Lower Primary Schools
• Pre Primary Schools.
• 10. There shall be a post of Panchayat / Municipality / Corporation Educational Officer with the prescribed qualifications of the Principal. He shall co-ordinate and monitor all the academic activities in the schools from the level of Pre primary education to higher secondary education, in the Local Self Government Institutions concerned. 

Theories of Management by Fayol, Taylor & Peter Drucker

Henri Fayol

The Frenchman, Henri Fayol, trained as a mining engineer but moved rapidly up the management hierarchy becoming seen as a successful manager. He believed that management is a science which can be taught and argued that there are six basic business activities: technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and managerial. He divided managerial activities into five: planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling. His fourteen ‘principles of management’ are:

Division of labour                                    Centralisation

Authority                                                  Hierarchy

Discipline                                                 Order

Unity of command                                   Equity

Unity of direction                                     Stability of staff

Subordination of individual interest         Initiative

Remuneration                                          Esprit de corps

Fayol believed that organisations could have a single purpose and that they operated in relatively stable environments in which a particular organisational structure could survive for many years. He believed in a centralised, hierarchical model of organisational relationships in which good managers ensured that staff were treated fairly in return for their commitment to organisational goals. This follows logically from his belief in a single purpose for the organisation and, in some ways, he was ahead of his time in suggesting that the ‘right’ relationships between management and staff are essential for the success of an organisation.

F.W Taylor

Taylor's approach is also often referred to, as Taylor's Principles, or frequently disparagingly, as Taylorism. Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles:

1. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.

2. Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.

3. Provide "Detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the performance of that worker's discrete task.

4. Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks.

Taylor had very precise ideas about how to introduce his system. It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.

Peter Drucker

Drucker identifies three broad types of production each of which needs a different type of organisation:

• unique product production — in which articles are produced individually — needs centralisation and specialisation;

• mass production — in which many articles are produced simultaneously — requires a high degree of coordination but not necessarily centralisation;

• process production — in which products are produced via a continuous process (e.g. an oil refinery or a nuclear power plant) — requires a decentralised structure.

Drucker argues for a minimum of hierarchy, decentralisation wherever possible and decisions to be taken as far down an organisation as possible. He also argues that productivity can only be improved through human resourcefulness, that, to liberate that resourcefulness, people must be encouraged to use their brains productively and that they will only do that if that are given the freedom to develop their own ideas about how to carry on the business of the organisation.

So each manager must set her/his own objectives related to the organisation’s overall aims which his/her boss will help her/him to achieve. Their manager will do this primarily through clarifying how they will meet the organisation’s overall aims and supplying the information the manager needs to chart his/her progress and to make any adjustments that may be necessary to achieve those objectives. Each manager then does the same for her/his subordinates.

Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management TQM, also known as total productive maintenance, describes a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.

Total Quality Management Principles: The 8 Primary Elements of TQM

Total quality management can be summarized as a management system for a customer-focused organization that involves all employees in continual improvement. It uses strategy, data, and effective communications to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organization. Many of these concepts are present in modern Quality Management Systems, the successor to TQM. Here are the 8 principles of total quality management:

1. Customer-focused

The customer ultimately determines the level of quality. No matter what an organization does to foster quality improvement—training employees, integrating quality into the design process, upgrading computers or software, or buying new measuring tools—the customer determines whether the efforts were worthwhile.

2. Total employee involvement

All employees participate in working toward common goals. Total employee commitment can only be obtained after fear has been driven from the workplace, when empowerment has occurred, and management has provided the proper environment. High-performance work systems integrate continuous improvement efforts with normal business operations. Self-managed work teams are one form of empowerment.

3. Process-centered

A fundamental part of TQM is a focus on process thinking. A process is a series of steps that take inputs from suppliers (internal or external) and transforms them into outputs that are delivered to customers (again, either internal or external). The steps required to carry out the process are defined, and performance measures are continuously monitored in order to detect unexpected variation.

4. Integrated system

Although an organization may consist of many different functional specialties often organized into vertically structured departments, it is the horizontal processes interconnecting these functions that are the focus of TQM.

• Micro-processes add up to larger processes, and all processes aggregate into the business processes required for defining and implementing strategy. Everyone must understand the vision, mission, and guiding principles as well as the quality policies, objectives, and critical processes of the organization. Business performance must be monitored and communicated continuously.
• An integrated business system may be modeled after the Baldrige National Quality Program criteria and/or incorporate the ISO 9000 standards. Every organization has a unique work culture, and it is virtually impossible to achieve excellence in its products and services unless a good quality culture has been fostered. Thus, an integrated system connects business improvement elements in an attempt to continually improve and exceed the expectations of customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

5. Strategic and systematic approach

A critical part of the management of quality is the strategic and systematic approach to achieving an organization’s vision, mission, and goals. This process, called strategic planning or strategic management, includes the formulation of a strategic plan that integrates quality as a core component.

6. Continual improvement

A major thrust of TQM is continual process improvement. Continual improvement drives an organization to be both analytical and creative in finding ways to become more competitive and more effective at meeting stakeholder expectations.

7. Fact-based decision making

In order to know how well an organization is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. TQM requires that an organization continually collect and analyze data in order to improve decision making accuracy, achieve consensus, and allow prediction based on past history.

8. Communications

During times of organizational change, as well as part of day-to-day operation, effective communications plays a large part in maintaining morale and in motivating employees at all levels. Communications involve strategies, method, and timeliness.

These elements are considered so essential to TQM that many organizations define them, in some format, as a set of core values and principles on which the organization is to operate.

Time Management

What Is Time Management?

The modern concept of time management - the act of planning the amount of time you spend on which activities - really began with Frederick Taylor's scientific management techniques. His goal was to increase worker productivity. To do this, he conducted time and motion studies and began to focus on the best ways for jobs to be performed to maximise the work completed in a given amount of time.

Why Manage Time?

Time management has come up as a subject in the management field to reach the goal of increasing productivity, especially among white-collar workers for whom work output may be hard to measure. For example, an assembly line worker's output of 60 widgets per hour can be compared to a factory average and deemed as acceptable or not; however, white collar outputs tend to be difficult to compare to standards. So, modern managers in these areas look for ways to monitor worker productivity in terms of time use.

Examples

Modern time management goals are still to increase productivity, but the best way remains elusive. Many researchers have explored the subject and come up with different theories on effective time management. Here are the theories of a few big names in the time management field:

In her 1994 book, Thinking Smarter: Skills for Academic Success, Carla Crutsinger defined effective time management as the process of:

• Setting goals
• Prioritising those goals
• Deciding how much time to allocate to specific tasks
• Adjusting plans as they change
• Revisiting the goals and priorities regularly
• Observing results

Academic leader Neil Shipman feels that the critical skills for time management are:

• Being aware of yourself - your habits and ways of working
• Structuring your time
• Setting goals and priorities
• Increasing personal efficiency and effectiveness
• Scheduling specific time for each activity
• Scheduling relaxation time in order to regenerate

Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects, and goals complying with a due date. Initially, time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools, techniques, and methods. Time management is usually a necessity in any project development as it determines the project completion time and scope.

Prohibition of child labour

Child Labour is the practice of having children engage in economic activity, on part- or full-time basis. The practice deprives children of their childhood, and is harmful to their physical and mental development. Poverty, lack of good schools and growth of informal economy are considered as the important causes of child labour in India. The 1998 national census of India estimated the total number of child labour, aged 4–15, to be at 12.6 million, out of a total child population of 253 million in 5–14 age group.

Causes of child labour

Primary causes

International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour. For impoverished households, income from a child's work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 and 40% of the household income. Other scholars such as Harsch on African child labour, and Edmonds and Pavcnik on global child labour have reached the same conclusion.

Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as affordable schools and quality education, according to ILO, is another major factor driving children to harmful labour. Children work because they have nothing better to do. Many communities, particularly rural areas where between 60–70% of child labour is prevalent, do not possess adequate school facilities. Even when schools are sometimes available, they are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really worth it.

Cultural causes

In European history when child labour was common, as well as in contemporary child labour of modern world, certain cultural beliefs have rationalised child labour and thereby encouraged it. Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children. In many cultures, particular where the informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents' footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age. Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling, and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services.

Macroeconomic causes

Biggeri and Mehrotra have studied the macroeconomic factors that encourage child labour. They focus their study on five Asian nations including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. They suggest that child labour is a serious problem in all five, but it is not a new problem. Macroeconomic causes encouraged widespread child labour across the world, over most of human history. They suggest that the causes for child labour include both the demand and the supply side. While poverty and unavailability of good schools explain the child labour supply side, they suggest that the growth of low-paying informal economy rather than higher paying formal economy is amongst the causes of the demand side. Other scholars too suggest that inflexible labour market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand and acceptability of child labour.

Rajya Sabha passes Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016

The Rajya Sabha unanimously passed Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016. The Bill seeks to amend the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 to widen the scope of the law against child labour and stricter punishments for violations. 

Key Provisions of Bill 

• Prohibition of employment of children below 14 years in all occupations or processes except where child helps his family. 
• Addition of a new category of persons called “adolescent”. They are person between 14 and 18 years of age. 
• Prohibition of employment of adolescents in hazardous occupations as specified (mines, hazardous processes and inflammable substance). 
• Empowers Union Government to add or omit any hazardous occupation from the list included in the Bill. 
• Punishment for employing any child increased i.e. imprisonment between 6 months and two years (from earlier 3 months-one year) or a fine of 20,000 to 50,000 Rupees (from earlier 10,000 to 20,000 Rupees) or both. 
• Proposes penalty for employing an adolescent in a hazardous occupation i.e. imprisonment between 6 months and 2 years or a fine of 20,000 to 50,000 Rupees or both. 
• Empowers the government to make periodic inspection of places at which employment of children and adolescents are prohibited. 
• Government may confer powers on a District Magistrate (DM) to ensure that the provisions of the law are properly carried out and implemented.

Four pillars of education suggested by UNESCO

The four pillars of Education

The four pillars of learning are fundamental principles for reshaping education:

• Learning to know: to provide the cognitive tools required to better comprehend the world and its complexities, and to provide an appropriate and adequate foundation for future learning.

• Learning to do: to provide the skills that would enable individuals to effectively participate in the global economy and society.

• Learning to be: to provide self analytical and social skills to enable individuals to develop to their fullest potential psycho-socially, affectively as well as physically, for a all-round ‘complete person.

• Learning to live together: to expose individuals to the values implicit within human rights, democratic principles, intercultural understanding and respect and peace at all levels of society and human relationships to enable individuals and societies to live in peace and harmony.