Educational Institutional Reforms

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Objectives
By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:
1. Give examples of the impact of institutional reforms on the
school.
2. Examine approaches to educational institutional reform.
3. Explain institutional reforms in educational organisations.
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Introduction

Education reform is a planned, systematic initiative or
programme which aims to bring about positive outcomes in
education. The initiative is usually imposed by the government
and implemented through policies and strategies.
The idea to reexamine the examination format for example, can
be viewed as an attempt to bring about new changes to the ways
examinations are conducted in our education system. This
section focuses on educational institutional reforms.

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Challenges for school principals
Todays educational leaders especially school leaders are hurried,
overburdened and frustrated by their inability to cope with
increasing demands and expectations (Sergiovanni et.al, 2009).
A survey on how principals perceive their jobs in the USA shows
that school principals view their jobs as having five challenges.
First challenge:
Increased workload - Principals have to deal with increasing social
and personal needs of students and families, increasing legal
requirements imposed by the relevant agencies and an expanding
list of job responsibilities.
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Second challenge:
Frustrations - Increased workload followed by time constraints,
political interference, bureaucratic procedures, more paper works
and greater demand for accountability have made principals
frustrated with their jobs.
Third challenge:
More responsibilities, less authority - Principals role have
expanded. However, many of them feel that although they have
more responsibilities, they are now having less authority.
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Fourth challenge:
Decreased effectiveness - As a result of having more responsibilities,
but suffering from less authority, principals feel that they have become
less effective in functioning as leaders. Their times have much been
used for urgent management issues that demand their immediate
attention (routine works), which sometimes are less important with
regard to the improvement of teaching and learning.
Fifth challenge:
Increased stress - The working conditions and workloads have
increased the level of stress among the school principals. Principals
have been forced to compromise between priorities on their personal
lives with school priorities. Long working hours and increased
pressures have also made them suffer from fatigue that resulted in
increased stress.
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Activity
Write a paragraph on each of the five challenges above in the
context of a school principal or teacher in Malaysia and for each
of the challenges, suggest a reform or solution to the challenge.
_____________________________________________________
_______________
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Systemic reforms
School reforms as mentioned by Razik and Swanson (2010) can be
divided into three phases.
Phase one is on raising students performance, increasing teacher
quality, initiating longer school days and years, introducing
competency tests, standardised curricula, and introducing rigorous
promotion criteria for students.
Phase two is on making the school an agent for change, which
includes capacity building, professional development and
governance changes.
Phase three focuses on system and policy integration and
coordination, targeting on structural reform, school reform, and
curricular reform.
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Activity
Over the past two decades, various types of reforms have taken
place in schools in Malaysia. They include the Smart School,
Cluster School, Vision Schools, The Teaching of Science and
Mathematics in English (PPSMI), SchoolNet, etc. Select any one
reform and write a 1,000 word report on how it is different from
the regular school or what is new or special about the reform.
For details, refer to the following websites:
Malaysian Smart School:
http://www.msc.com.my/smartschool/whatis/index.asp
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19781128/Smart-School- Blueprint
Malaysian Vision School: http://www.springerlink.com/content/
c2n743v430218j63/
SchoolNet: http://www.schoolnet.my/default.php
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References
Everard, K B, Morris, G and Wilson, I (2004) Effective School
Management, 4th edn, London: Paul Chapman.
Razik, T A and Swanson, A D (2010) Fundamental Concepts of
Educational Leadership and Management, 3rd edn, Boston: Allyn
and Bacon.
Sergiovanni, T J, Kelleher, P, McCarthy, M and Fowler, F C (2009)
Educational Governance and Administration, 6th edn, Boston:
Pearson.
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