Sustaining Excellence in Educational Institutions

Dr Vijayam Ravi ,

A principal’s priority is the student’s achievement and development, and teachers are a tool to realizing that. Using a wrong tool may spoil the raw material itself. Schools cannot afford to make mistakes at the cost of children.

Developing a strong communication practices 
Literacy is important, but using literacy to effectively communicate is much more than this. Content, strategies, improving communications must be an integral part of the system. Right from KG classes, schools start dumping writing exercises on children that should be totally abolished. Early childhood education practices insist that teachers train children to listen to instructions, speak their mind as a part of the first stage of learning. Reading and writing comes much later. But unfortunately, some schools start straight away with alphabets and English language. Even when children are not ready yet to understand their own mother tongue, a foreign language is coming as a medium to express emotions. This is also one of the reasons for the poor performance of children - lack of comprehension.  Communicating a particular data in language form is a casualty today, even among teachers. Usage of short sentences to explain something in a very crisp manner is the art of communication.

Art of listening is something children and adults of today are lacking. We all hear what others speak, but hardly do we listen. But we expect our children to always listen to us. Children need to be told and trained about the art of listening; it should be a part and parcel of the curriculum.
Knowledge on contemporary matters

Children are vulnerable and today safety and security of kids travelling to school is of a grave concern for all of us. Schools need to pay more attention to this and travel that extra mile as a partner in bringing up the children. We teach our children the constitutional rights but we conveniently forget to emphasize their responsibilities. A concerted efficient knowledge movement is required in order to make children responsible enough to understand the implications of violation of rights and punishments that are waiting if law is abused or basic discipline is transgressed. The way the world functions on different issues should become part and parcel of the school studies and the courage to face the world should be a functional activity of the school. Schools never hesitate to teach academic subjects, but they very much deter from teaching children something that is contemporary.

Sacred time

Schools should keep a sacred time every week totally devoted to all teachers sitting together and discussing the achievement gaps of children in each class, practices adopted by teachers to fill the gaps, innovative efforts taken by teachers to make class room practices very memorable and significant, improving performance and increasing professional efficiency in them. This needs to be compulsorily attended by the principal. Children should not be around and it has to be purely an academic activity where the principal keeps the minutes of this and does the follow up work with the concerned teacher groups for the improvement or progress taking place. If so required, the principal can form small working groups of teachers and appoint a leader for initiating discussion in each group.
Appoint excellence to sustain excellence

All the above said activities need excellent and qualified experienced teachers. A principal should not hesitate to appoint excellence - whatever constraints the managements may have in running the school, if they compromise on quality of teachers and their continuous training, sustaining excellence will be a distant dream. If there are staff issues, pertaining to discipline and lack of efficiency in transaction of curriculum, without hesitation, the principal should be able to terminate their services.  While this should be the last option, the earlier efforts from the principal should necessarily include supervising the teacher’s work, counseling if required and interaction with the staff and identifying his/her need for professional development etc., in case none of these corrective measures work positively on the staff, there should not be any hesitation to sack the staff. This act of the principal may look very cruel for people concerned with HR, but it is as important as being true to one’s job. A principal’s priority is the student’s achievement and development, and teachers are a tool to realizing that. Using a wrong tool may spoil the raw material itself. Schools cannot afford to make mistakes at the cost of children.

Science and technology has expanded the universe and the opportunities. But right use of all these have to be ensured at all times for institutions to sustain excellence. Just having a smart board classroom to show case the school, does not mean that the school is techno savvy. How much of the spirit of technology is instilled in every child, and how much of inquisitiveness and innovation is injected into the students is what has to be looked for. Students have a natural inclination towards technology and sometimes they are better equipped than all of us. Keeping this fact in mind, one has to approach the classroom transactions. Science education has to be nurtured and so teaching science should be a pleasurable activity for the staff. Student participation, promoting innovation and posing challenges to students are the regular and normal ways of getting students attracted to Science.

Conclusion

Any activity, if it is not done without involvement, would prove to be a disaster. Teaching is the brilliant example for it because a teacher can make or break a child. In a similar manner, a poor leader can take the school to such a disaster that the school may find it difficult to come out of it. Therefore, Appoint Excellence, Sustain Excellence.

Dr Vijayam Ravi M.Sc, M.A, M.Ed, M.Phil, PhD(Education), PhD (Philosophy) is an educational consultant based in Mumbai. She can be contacted through her mail address

contact@drvijayamravi.com.