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Who will manage the same school heads?
DEAR EDITOR,
Today’s report in the media (ref. KN, 5/9/14) titled: “Head-teachers urged to discipline errant staffers”) purportedly to achieve higher productivity through “better attendance, punctuality and preparedness” strikes me as being quite outmoded not only in this age but also having regard to the target group who comprise what the human resource management literature calls ‘knowledge workers’.
The Chief Education Officer is reported to have asserted that “school heads must fervently seek to manage the attendance, punctuality and preparedness of their teaching staff”. This begs at least three questions: ‘Who will manage the same school heads? Are they themselves paragons in these aspects of behavior? Does this not relegate the proper role of the school heads to that of time-keeper as opposed to being an inspirational motivator and leader?
Worse, the entire report seems to suggest that the leaders of the Ministry of Education are depending on the ‘big stick’ approaches of adherence to monitoring and enforcement of “procedures in relation to disciplining of teachers”. Furthermore and unbelievably, the report ascribes to the CEO the charge that “Education managers must establish a work ethic that makes attendance, punctuality and preparedness priorities in their schools” having regard to the core of the problem being what he termed the “teacher factor”.
In my humble view, gathered from decades of learning and experience in varied and far-flung fields including teaching and education, issues of poor attendance, punctuality and under- performance are more often than not symptomatic of underlying problems that are not curable by simplistic, heavy-handed monitoring and disciplining. Their origins, causations, preventions or cures require professional analyses that go much deeper than what appears to have been done by the leaders of our education department. For example, to what extent have we looked at the shortcomings in our recruitment, selection, staff-training and motivation vis-a-vis relevant state-of-the art human resource management systems and practices?
What is worse than a teacher who attends regularly and punctually with well-prepared ‘notes of lessons’ but who does not deliver real education because he/she is not suitable for the profession or not properly oriented, inducted, given on-the-job training or initial oversight nor constantly motivated by regular, hopefully positive and developmental feedback in an enabling environment?
The “adoption of a no-nonsense approach” ascribed to/by the CEO and the Ministry only serves to expose a ‘police and thief’ mentality which is not curbing criminal elements in the society; would it help our teachers who are now being painted with the same brush? It appears to me that the latest dictate that our “Education Managers must establish a work ethic” exposes a philosophy or mentality that is anathema to modern management, is anachronistic like colonialism and as doomed to failure as slavery, especially in the world of ‘knowledge workers’.
Nowrang Persaud
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