Is been a while I participated in the steem engagement challenge and I noticed the slight changes done so far and it’s really impressive. The topic “Education Management”, is one, that I couldn’t ignore because it is similar to my field of study, which is business management. I believe, I can share some useful information in the contest.

Without wasting much of our time, let me quickly invite @cletuskelvin, @dar22 and @nsijoro.

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Education management is the process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling school activities in other to achieve a common goal by effectively utilizing human and material resources. Educational management plays a crucial role in the administration and delivery of education.

The main functions, like the writer suggested are planning, organizing, directing, controlling and implementing. This functions are what is needed effectively to run an educational organization.

I will be sharing with us a real life scenario of poor educational management in an institution that I know about.

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A church that organizes holiday lessons for their member’s children and deemed it necessary to open a school for the kids since the crowd was now getting so much and also had other children that enrolled for the holiday lessons. They kicked off with the school project and when they were done, the pastor of the church handed it over to a management team to run the affairs of the school. The school flourished and grew in numbers.

As years passed, the country entered into recession and many firms were shut down. The church school wasn’t an exception. Paying staff their due wages and other school expenses became difficult, which led to the increase of tuition by management board. This was challenging for the parents to meet up with payment, and handful of the top church staff bypassed the school management and went straight to the pastor to request for a discount.

The pastor, instead of directing them to the school management board, succumbed to their pleas and used his authority to influence the school management. Some teachers, who were also members of the church and had kids in the school, heard about it and were jealous. It didn’t take long before the cat was let out of the bag. Other parents who are also members of the church and were also hit badly by the recession, went to the pastor to complain about their own financial challenges and requested for a discount. The pastor directed them to the school management and told them that whatever they decided was final.

School management stood their grounds that they won’t reduce the tuition. People who couldn’t meet up, left the school, some students were chased back home because they couldn’t pay their fees and the cash generated from the few students left was not enough to run the school and pay staffs. Some unpaid teachers resigned and the few left didn’t take their job serious because of lack of support and recognition. The volunteer teachers that were employed didn’t have proper training and lack skills to implement modern teaching strategies.

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This affected the academic performance of the students. The curricula used even failed to meet the students educational needs or prepare them for the university. It didn’t take long, parents started withdrawing their kids from the school and this made the pastor of the church, shut down the school completely.

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• The school management lacked financial planning and had poor management skills because they failed to plan for external factors like “recession” that can influence an organization's performance. This led to financial difficulties in paying staff salaries and other expenses.

• The decision of increasing school fees without even sitting down with the parents to discuss or set up a strategy to support parents affected by the recession, led to the massive withdrawal of kids

• The communication gap between the school management, parents and the pastor led to the misunderstanding. What I’m saying is that, rather than making the decision around offered discount publicly, it was done in a closed door which fueled jealousy among staffs and parents that are also members of the church.

• The pastor undermined the authority of the management board by granting discounts without even consulting them in the first place.

• The favoritism showed to top members of the church and disregarding others who were staffs and other parents who had kids in the school as well, brought about resentment.

• Been unable to pay staff there due wages, outdated school curriculum and employing untrained volunteered teachers reduced the quality of the education, which made them unfit for the university

• The management and church leadership were only focused on short term solution by increasing the fees, instead of thinking of a long term solution. To make matters worse, the poor handling of parents' financial concerns and inconsistent discount policies damaged relationships with both the church and school

The shut down of the school was as a result of poor implementation of educational management functions. If the school had prepared for all this unforeseen circumstances beyond their control and had good savings, it wouldn’t have gotten to this extent. So as an educationist or anyone who wants to run an organization, it’s vital you have this functions at your fingertips.