The Role of Education Leaders in Secondary Education

In the rise of the information era, education is one of the most essential aspect of human development. All individuals must at least be educated of the basic knowledge in order to understand the things that happened around them and be able to react positively on various events. Thus, schools and other scholastic institutions must be studied in order to understand their role in the society and how it could help human development. In this article, the basic knowledge on school administration will be discussed. The first topic answers the question on who governs and controls schools and the second topic is all about policy-makers in schools as well as policy-making.

There are various governance models used to identify as to controls the schools nowadays. The first one is the shared governance wherein colleges and universities must be controlled by their most immediate workers such as the faculty, professional staff, and as well as the students. Basically, the students, faculty, and professional staff share in decision making, policy making and implementation by means of consultation processes. The reason for the implementation of this governance model is that the faculty, professional staff, and the students are the immediate stakeholders of the academic institution. The motive of its control lies on the fact that immediate stakeholders are best knowledgeable about the academic mission of the school. The second governance model is the corporate governance model which is designed to reduce the number of faculty, professional staff, and as well as students that comprise the immediate stakeholders. A small number of people who are experts in their chosen fields are involved in the policy making and implementation. The primary motive of allowing this to happen is economic reasons. Hence, the corporate governance model is not geared towards the implementation of educational development alone but also in economic development.

Moreover, trustee governance is not similar to shared governance. While shared governance meant partnerships in governance, such as those among students, faculty, college and university administrators, trustee governance on the other hand meant the manner of governance, particularly by means of a fiduciary relationship in which a trustee board governs the institution in a fiduciary character on behalf of either students or the institution as a whole. The board of trustees usually participate in policy-making and implementation as well as the control of the school. The primary motive of this governance model is to solve a financial crisis in the school administration. However, trustee governance requires strict compliance to fiduciary duties and to avoid conflict of interest in decision making and policy making. In the determination of the ethical, social, and economic goals of education as well as setting the curriculum, the trustees must complete this task in a trustee governance model while the corporate governing body of the school in a corporate governance model will do the same task. For the shared governance, the students, professional staff, and faculty are all active in the determination of the ethical, social, and economic goals of the academic institution that they belong. For setting the curriculum, the students are being informed of the process.

The control and supervision of a school depends on what governance model was chosen in a particular academic institution. These academic governance models include shared governance model, corporate governance model, and the trustee governance model. In all these models, it is the corporate governance model that is not in favor of maximum academic freedom that should have been shared by the immediate stakeholders of the school such as the students, professional staff, and the faculty.