Effective School Administration; Best Practice for Head Teachers and Principals;

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Generally speaking, the School Head is the General Overseer of the School he heads, the link between the School, the Community and the Sponsor or Sponsoring Agencies. He performs a myriad of tasks, each demanding equal and adequate attention. Specifically, the critical functions of the School Heads are:

: Effective Curriculum is the pivot of the School administration. An effective Administrator must provide an effective curriculum and programme of instructions to maintain standard. Besides the basic problem of developing and conducting a good programme of instruction for the School, the School Head has the additional responsibility of making adjustment and adoption to meet the individual need of pupils within the School.

Personnel Administration constitutes another bedrock of School administration. To achieve the goals of the School, experienced and trained staff must be provided; certified Personnel-Teachers, Counselors as well as non-tutorial staff such as; Drivers, Gatemen, Security Guards, Cooks, Messengers, Clerical staff etc. A lot of factors-economic condition, societal and legal forces, Trade Unions etc combine to pose challenges to human resource managers. School Heads have the task of determining the personnel need of the School, satisfying these personnel needs and maintaining and improving personnel services in the School.

These are services and activities provided to supplement regular students’ instructions-feeding, Health care, Security, Counselling etc. The Journal of National Council of Principals of Teacher Colleges states a typical schedule of activities with regards to students personnel administration to include: students admission, report of students’ total performance to parents/guardians, maintaining and reinforcing discipline with laid down rules and regulations, maintenance of detailed/ permanent record of students, creation and maintenance of effective channel of communication with students. Given the present age where students have moved from passive acceptance to active involvement in administrative matters, School Heads must readjust and re-orient administrative strategies to accommodate the changing role of students to avoid conflicts (Bernard, Oyoyo, 1989) : The School is an open social system that constantly interacts with its environment. Inadequate knowledge of the characteristics of the community in which the School operates could hamper healthy School-community relations with grave consequences. The School Head must have sound knowledge of the School community to be able to operate successfully. As a School Head, you must establish, develop, maintain and nurture satisfactory relationship with the community as well as governors and the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) (Ozigi, 1977).

School, like any other institution hardly has enough funds to meet her needs. Financial resources management is therefore another key responsibility of School Heads. School Administrators must identify and harness all sources of fund available to them. Efficient financial management requires preparation and adherence to a feasible budget and observance of the rule of transparency, accountability and probity.

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★ Contributing to the functions of the School Administrator (Usman, 2014) opine that the functions of the School Administrator is not restricted to mere control of staff and students of the School, its finances and curriculum management but include other functions highlighted below: Management of the School businesses and physical facilities, supervision of instructional activities to ensure adherence to syllabus and adoption of correct pedagogy, modification and influence of staff and students behavior to conform to the ethics of the school and society, evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the School resource utilization and taking remedial measures to correct anomalies for the attainment of the Schools’ goals and objectives

For effective administration of the School, the School Head may adopt any or a mix of the following types of administration:

★ Democratic Administration: This is based on joint decision making approach. Concern for staff and work are at the average. It emphasis working for the attainment of the goals of the organization without compromising staff welfare. The method is relationship oriented. It gives room for innovation and development.

★Autocratic Administration: This method adopts authoritarian approach to decision making. Here, decisions are taken only by the School Head without any consultation. It is task- oriented with no concern to staff opinion and welfare. It is characterized by rigid rules, work terms and condition and unquestionability of the authority.

★ Laissez-faire Administration: This is indifference approach to administration. The Head is indifference to staff welfare, work and organization’s expectations.

★ Transactional Administration: This refers to a quid-pro-quo (something for something) type of administration. A Telling style that emphasize positive and negative reinforcement in the realization of organizational goals. It motivates work through incentives; accomplish task in exchange for a reward. This approach engenders mastery and competition.

★ Transformational Administration: This is a direct opposite of the transactional approach. It is a selling leadership style. It emphasizes motivation, inspiration and pro-activeness. The focus here is corporate progress and future staff reward. This method gives room to commitment, efficient production and team spirit.

An understanding of the various styles of administration will help School Heads to deploy and utilize the best approach at the appropriate time for best administrative outcome.

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