Initiation of Educators into Educational Management Secrets

Abstract

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Resolving School Staffing Problems in Greece: A Strategic Management Approach

“…Strategic management is considered in pertinent literature (e.g., Chakravarthy, 1982;Halachmi et al, 1993;Cox et al, 2012;Sklavou, 2013;Saitis and Saiti, 2018) as the orientation of an organization's administrative operations, typically by senior leadership, toward fundamental and long-term changes. Those changes aim at transforming the organization in order to be better equipped to meet any challenges presented by an everchanging environment, to perform under present circumstances and, above all, to fulfill its goals with regard to its future success (Georgopoulos, 2006;Wang et al, 2007).…”

“…Most researchers (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996;Liedka, 2000;Steiss, 2005;Dubrin, 2010;Hill et al, 2015;Saitis and Saiti, 2018) concur that strategic management is carried out in three stages: (i) analysis of the working environment, estimation of possible changes in the future and development of a vision and goals accordingly, (ii) development of alternatives for the implementation of strategies and materialization of the vision as well as the goals, and finally (iii) implementation of the selected strategy as well as appraisal and evaluation of outcomes. However, the above stages need not always be followed, least so in the order presented.…”

“…Fundamental elements underpinning the strategic management concept (Georgopoulos, 2006;Sklavou, 2013;Saitis and Saiti, 2018) are:…”

“…On the contrary, researchers seem to associate school effectiveness with various factors such as improving students' achievements (Houtveen et al, 2004), improving the quality of instruction (Thoonen, 2012), redressing social inequality (Thrupp, 1995;Sammons, 2007), preparing students for the job market, and increasing productivity (Heyneman, 1997). Despite the diversity of opinions, though, what they do seem to agree upon (see e.g., Kalin and Zuljan, 2007;Reynolds, 2010;Saitis and Saiti, 2018) is that, in order for schools to be considered effective, they should (among other things) demonstrate competent leadership, regularly updated curricula and textbooks, adequate teaching means, proper material and technical infrastructure, unobstructed administrational operation as well as close cooperation with parents (Thoonen, 2012;Babalis and Tsoli, 2017). What they particularly need, though, is scientifically and pedagogically trained teaching staff with adequate and updated knowledge/skills and a positive attitude with regard to teaching, learning, and classroom management aspects (Flower et al, 2017;Révai and Guerriero, 2017).…”

“…Amongst the gravest are the failure of newly appointed teaching staff to acclimatize to their new school units, high stress levels (Mlekanis, 2005;Antoniou and Garyfallaki, 2016), professional burnout (Antoniou and Mitsopoulou, 2016), the lack of an open and favorable climate, and the subsequent lack of good cooperation in tandem with the school community members (Katsaros, 2008;Papadatou, 2018;Rapti and Papadatou, 2018;Thanasopoulou, 2019). In contrast, according to pertinent studies (Lawler and Boudreau, 2009;Odden and Archibald, 2009;Odden, 2011;Primary Academies Trust., 2016;Saitis and Saiti, 2018), the school staffing process in countries such as England and the USA draws upon teachers' qualifications and experience, an evaluation of the current situation, as well as estimations and projections of current and future teaching staff requirements. In this way, candidates for teaching positions are scrutinized in terms of their qualifications and experience in the context of well-defined prerequisites so as to ensure, to a great extent, that the newly appointed staff will be competent in their profession and fully consistent with the future requirements of school education.…”