Management in Education

The political, economic and social challenges in Zimbabwe are well documented. Public schools have been damaged by a shortage of resources, and by a brain drain of teachers. This has led many parents to seek private education for their children but the country’s economic problems mean that they often cannot afford to pay the fees. This demanding context informed the authors’ study of leadership in 12 private schools in Harare and the surrounding area. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 19 leaders in these schools. The findings show that most of the schools have experienced significant falls in student numbers, despite cutting fees. This creates a severe management challenge for principals, other leaders and school owners. There have been redundancies at several of the schools, which the leaders find stressful, while salary levels remain modest although still higher than those in the public sector. The infrastructure and facilities are generally good compared to those in the public sector but leaders lament that they cannot be enhanced in the current financial climate. Most of the schools have a distinctive Christian ethos, and a vision to provide the best possible education for their children, but the leaders’ ambitious plans are thwarted by Zimbabwe’s harsh economic realities.

The issue of principals moving or changing schools has emerged and has been debated within the previous literature that investigates why principals move after a few years of principalship. Based on previous findings, various reasons are listed as motives for principals to move from, or remain at, their current schools. However, within Malaysian principalship, little is known about why principals move to a new school and their options after completing/leaving a principalship position. Thus, this article investigates reasons for moving to second schools and options after the principalship position within the Malaysian context of principalship. For that purpose, nine principals, comprising four middle-phase and five senior principals, were interviewed to solicit their reasons for moving and their options after their principalship phase has been completed. Various factors are mentioned by the principals, such as being posted to schools that are at a distance from their home, providing a platform for a novice principal, and assisting schools that have low achievements. In terms of options after a principalship, senior principals spoke of their intention to remain at the same school until their retirement phase arrives. However, interviewed senior principals revealed their intentions of becoming school leadership consultants as a platform to share their wide experiences with novice principals.

The English further education sector has undergone significant change since the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) encouraged a culture of entrepreneurship, competition and the use of what was seen as best practice from the commercial sector. This led to a cultural shift and the introduction of many new initiatives – a situation that still exists now. The implementation of these initiatives was often delegated to middle managers – a group of people who occupied the gap between the senior leaders and the lecturers in the classroom. Current austerity measures, restructuring and the shift towards the creation of larger organizations have resulted in reorganizations that could present opportunities for middle managers to participate in the strategic processes and leadership of the organization, further developing their role (Greatbatch and Tate, 2018). The purpose of this article is to investigate the leadership and management aspects of the middle-manager’s role within the context of further education in England. Although many managers in the sector are reluctant to identify as leaders (Briggs, 2006), our research shows that their role has evolved so that they are undertaking a range of activities that could be classified as leadership. We suggest that using ‘practice’ rather than ‘process’ as a descriptor of the role would reframe, identify and bring forward the leadership aspects of what they do. Encouraging a focus on a holistic, practice-based approach, rather than a succession of process-driven tasks, could help managers to perform their role more effectively. Findings taken from interviews with 32 participants and a questionnaire with 302 responses are used to illustrate our argument.

Drawing on continuing research, and in particular, interviews during 2017-18 in two contrasting local authorities, this article reflects on changing power dynamics and their implications for state schools, local authorities, multi-academy trusts and DfE officials at all levels. In the light of changes recently announced by the Secretary of State, with potential radical implications for school governance and leadership, rapidly implemented without the need for secondary legislation because of the (now) highly centralised nature of the English Education State, the article considers the implications for longer term stability in a depoliticised system.

Governor recruitment in England is increasingly difficult, with schools in remote locations struggling to recruit skilled governors. Set against a global context of e-governing, this article evaluates Lloyds Banking Group’s (LBG) potential solution – volunteer LBG employees who attend governing board meetings remotely. Interview data collected from five governors and key school stakeholders is analysed using Young’s (2017) categorization of governor knowledge as ‘managerial’, ‘educational’ and ‘lay’. Schools value governors’ managerial knowledge more than the governors do, and this is owing to the difficulties governors face in acquiring both ‘educational’ and ‘lay’ knowledge – a problem exacerbated by technology and outdated practices. This article recommends ways in which remote attendance of governor meetings could be improved in order to provide a more effective solution to skilled governor recruitment shortages.