Difference between revisions of "QA4ODFL1/Governance/School management"

The manager of an open school is answerable to the governing body and to the community. She/he manages teaching and learning processes on a regular basis, provides resources appropriately and makes sure systems are in place for the school to meet its intended purpose. In open schooling, this calls for unique ways of planning to service a distributed group of learners. The manager has to think of how communication with such a distributed student population takes place, what facilities are needed, how timely support is provided to each learner, how learning is monitored, how learners who learn in isolation are tracked and motivated to learn, and how effective assessment is managed. All this is done to ensure that the goals of the school are met. As Bush notes, (open) school management has to do with achieving certain education goals, (Bush, 2003). ^[1]. Unless this link between purpose and management is clear, there is a danger of “managerialism”, which places emphasis on procedures at the expense of educational purpose and values, (Bush, 2003). This is particularly true with open schools, which should have a clearly defined purpose which distinguishes them from conventional face-to-face schools. Managing a face-to-face learning environment is different from managing a decentralised, distance learning environment. Unit 3 of this course will explain this difference in terms of the structures of face-to-face compared to distance education organisations.