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Educational Management
Notes consideration, they do not always provide findings that permit a straightforward translation of
available information into precise strategies for improving educational quality. At best, they suggest
directions that are likely to yield better results than other directions. This means that even at central
levels the use of formal theory and empirical studies based on those theories are likely to have only
limited applicability linking information to quality. Although the evidence form such studies may
at times be used to formulate guidelines for translating educational information into strategic
decisions, one should not be limited to this approach because there are other ways to make those
connections.
A much more direct connection between educational information and educational decisions for
raising quality can be established through “self-evident” links. These refer to links between various
educational inputs and processes that are “logically” related to educational quality. The availability
of information can strengthen policy development of self-evident links have been presented
(Lumsden, 1974).
It is reasonable to believe that at least minimum levels of instructional materials such as paper,
writing instruments, blackboards, chalk, and textbooks, are necessary to support the learning process.
In many developing countries, such materials are in short supply, particular by rural areas. Indeed,
there are classrooms where none of these are present. In such a situation the instructional processes
is handicapped considerably on prima facie grounds. Accordingly, it is important to collect
information on the presence of such materials at the school site. Where material availability is
inadequate, it should be made possible to raise quality through increasing these inputs. Even without
a complete understanding of the effects of such classroom materials on learning, it is reasonable to
use information on their availability to make decisions that can be linked to quality (Liston, 1999).
23.3.4 Quality of Out Put (Students)
If there is any desire to pull out their nations from marshes of decline, decay and degradation,
education must be completely revamped and an important step in this direction is to introduce
clean and honest entry examinations to all professional educational institutions at provincial and
national levels.
The quality of the students who constitute the raw material of higher education requires special
attention to their problems of access in the light of criteria related to merit (abilities and motivation);
proactive policies for the benefit of disadvantaged; exchanges with secondary education and with
the bodies involved in the transition from secondary to higher education, to ensure that education
is an unbroken chain.
Student capability is developed as much by learning experiences as by specific content of courses.
If students are to develop justified confidence in their ability to take purposive and sensible action,
and to develop the unseemly characteristics of confidence in their ability to learn, belief in their
power to perform and proven power of judgment in unfamiliar situations, they need real, experiment
of being responsible and accountable for their own learning, with the rigorous, interactive, supportive
and, for them, unfamiliar environment of higher education. If, as a consequence of being responsible
for their own learning they bring about significant changes in their personal, academic, vocational
or professional circumstances they will also have justified confidence in their ability to take effective
and appropriate action, to explain what they are about, to live and work effectively with other
people, and to continue to learn from their own experiences (Stephensop and Yorke, 1998).
What is quality of faculty ?
The quality of education and research assumes the existence of an adequate physical infrastructure
that matches needs. It also assumes, however, that such infrastructure is maintained and managed
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