Nigerian primary and Secondary Education on my mind ! So I blog about my possible solutions and ideas.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Tired of my job
Achievements are easy to come by!
Supervision is simply when a mother asks her daughter to prepare jollof rice for her, she provides all the needed ingredients, tells her how to cook it beat.
The mom comes to the kitchen in about 15-20 mins interval to check if she is doing the right thing, if she is not she makes corrections.
The supervisor is the mom,
The supervised is the daughter
Achievement is accomplishing a particular goal that has been made know earlier, it can also be viewed to be having passed beyond the set out mark.
Supervision involves more of regular check, periodic evaluation of every activity to ensure that it is inline with the set out goal. This check is on all the human resources put to work alone.
Human resources in a school involves the cleaners, the security, teachers, assistant teachers, head of departments, librarian, store keepers, secretary, school secretary, nurse, class teachers, etc
Checking on a teachers should be based on a checklist which should contain a list of the individuals job descriptions or what is expected of him/ her in brief.
This will help us know what to look out for when supervising
Supervision should be scheduled - may be Wednesdays for assistant Teachers, Tuesdays for Teachers, and some selected days for other school staff.
Supervision must not be static in order for supervision to really be effective
Supervision for teachers and assistant teachers should include classroom environment, writing materials for students, teaching aids, teaching methods, teachers attitude, teachers use of words, the subject matter, use of examples.
Why supervision ?
It ensures that schools conforms to the rules and regulations and other government directives
To make teachers aware of various resources that can enhance their teaching function for the benefit of the students
To raise the standard of education by helping teachers
To improve the students learning conditions
To ensure that everyday efforts are not wasted in the school
Helps the school uphold a good name
Helps the administrator know the real needs of the school
An effective and efficient administrator doesn't just sit in the office literally doing nothing but ensure everyday's activities moves the organization closer to it stated goal.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Management vs Administration
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Signs of a Successful School
No matter the size of the school there must be a set out Vision and Mission for the school, it helps the organization to know what to do and what not to do.
A vision is who, what our school will be in the nearest future, it is usually very brief and straight forward, a short sentence for that matter.
(In football for example, it is the goal post that we see though we are at the center of the pitch)
A mission statement tells the world how we intend to achieve this vision we said earlier, it is those things we do that will help us achieve our vision/goal
After doing all this:
Every member of the school must be aware of this, written boldly visible to both school members, visitors and the public.
Every one in the school must have a role to play, no one is just there doing nothing, remembered we are going somewhere
There should be a channel of authority - who authorize who on the task assigned to him/ her
Individuals/ Groups/Department are responsible for all the consequences of their actions either good or not too good
Everyone gets paid, appreciated, applauded for their little efforts in helping us achieve our goal at the appropriate time
All efforts are coordinated. We know when to do this and when not to do this
We put organizational interest/goals before our Personal interests.
We are work as a team, with the believe that we are all in this together.yearle
Have a founder's day to celebrate momentum and achievements and evaluate efforts yearly (You can check out my post on "Top Notch School Event")
When all this are present in our school, the top here we come!
Between Administrators and Teachers 2
Interactions between Administrators and teachers sometimes are really a big issue as it are sometimes makes teachers to act rudely to the administrator, teachers give repulsive attitude towards teaching, even the learners can tell when the teacher is giving her best and when she is not emotionally balance.
An administrator we are dealing with human beings always. In every administrators' office should be a picture of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Between Administrators and Teachers we noticed;
1. Lack of Openness:
Being unnecessarily making discussion brief, encoding information makes a teachers mind travel and ponder over a lot of things - positive and negative. It leads to distrust in the long-run.
Even if you have to be brief, it should not be all the time, at the end of the day, an open discussion over the issue should take place.
Yes should be Yes, No should be No. An iota of trust is needed to achieve tangible things in every relationship.
2. Lack of enthusiasm:
When an administrator is not enthusiastic about the task to be done or his job as a whole, it is visible to everyone.
There must "life" in every message passed. The message must be passed in a way that will appeal to the particular teacher.
3. Lack of fundamental Knowledge of the task:
Every administrator should know something about everything and everything about one thing which is administration.
We need to be exposed to an intricate part of every subject taught, human relations, communication, etc. If as an administrator we don't know the exact result of every action, how do we evaluate the job done, how do we know what was right or wrong?
3.Bad Expression:
4. Individual differences: Everyone is different in every way possible- thinking pattern, tone of voice, capabilities, listening and communication skills. We need to understand every teacher well enough to how to communcate with them enough to get them to happily carry out a task.
5. Emotional reactions
Our emotional state of mind per time like love, family issues, fear, happiness, sadness, anger, assumptions, etc can affect the message we pass down to our subordinates and they just wonder what is happening to us and the message we are supposed to pass is ignored. And we assume they will carry out the task, and we end up been disappointed and more unhappy.
6. Personality and appearance of the administrator:
There is always a space for improvement no matter your personality. We just need to identify what more we need to acquire for our teacher to give in their best. Some of us honestly have dirty looks, unpleasant body odour,broaden our knowledge base, fidgeting, unkempt looks, poor pronunciation, typographical errors, past unpleasant issues between teacher, poor logical arrangement, and a lot of others can distort the process of communication.7.Distractions:
We and the other party we are communicating with, we do get distracted by noise, uncondusive environment, improper social timing, provocative dressing, inadequate illumination, phone calls, etc can affect us when we are talking- the message and the person too.
Friday, October 17, 2014
6 Things with Planning
For every plan to be successful make it go through these 6 stages in your school.
Pre- planning : This is preparing to plan, as funny as it sounds it involves looking into what will be needed for the planning process and making them available.
A condusive environment, what do we what to plan
Adjustment of resources and machinery necessary. All that is needed to plan materials and structures so as to have a feasible plan
Outline the planning procedure. How to get the resources. When to get the resources needed for this our plan.
Set up procedures for collection and analysis of information / data for every stage of planning
Planning: This is the actual planning, it includes diagnosing the project- What we want to achieve at the end of the planning,
formulating Policies - these are the rules & guidelines to help us achieve this plan (it must be written out & made public).
establishing priorities - now which activity should come up first and which is next in a very rational manner.
carrying out feasibility studies - this is what to sell? how to sell? who to sell to? who to sell it? how much? what is the competition like? location of target market? how do we manipulate demand?
costing of the project - after doing all the above things, how much does each cost us,considering other necessary things that is peculiar to your plan, then we put all the cost together, it becomes the total cost of the plan.
Plan Formulation: This is presenting a set of decisions we intend taking as regards our proposed plan in form of a proposal to the appropriate authorities and to provide a line of action to bring the plan into implementation.
It consists of
What is proposed?
Why is it proposed?
How to implement what is proposed? This is taking actions to implement, bring to reality what is planned.
Plan Elaboration: After the approval of the plan. This is not implementation straight away but involves dividing the plan into specific and achievable duration of time. It involves dividing our plans into what we can achieve if all resources are available and all hands are on deck- dally, weekly, monthly, bimonthly, etc dependent of the size of the plan.
It is more or less like building a house for example we want to roof the duplex- how many carpenters do we need, how many days will it take, how many how per day will be on roofing the building, etc
For a school, what to we want to achieve a smaller objective that is apart of the big objective, how many staff do we need, like our many days should this take, how many hours in a day should we allot to this, closing time, evaluation time of the day, salary/ wage structures, what we we have left after all this?
At the end of the day we know how long in reality it will take us to achieve this plan
Plan Implementation: This is the core stage , because if all other process have been consider. If this is left undone it is all NOTHING. Here our plan is been executed. All little efforts here now becomes very visible, the running of a para-organization has started. Structures are used to carry out tasks, administration of activities is very visible, keeping of records now is very visible.
Evaluation of plan: So now that we have started we need to keep a check on ourselves and the project. This can be done weekly or monthly.
What have we done so far?
Is this want we intend to achieve?
What is it that needs to be corrected?
What has been effective?
What has not been effective?
What challenges have we experienced so far?
How can we tackle them quickly?
Do we need re-oreintation?
Celebrate, Inspire and motivate your team with every little success made, it renews the energy
Effective and efficient planning isn't a day job
Team work keeps plans alive
Good planning = Good projects
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Between Adminstrators and Teachers 1
Courtesy and Cordiality at Work........
Courtesy can be said to be a polite gesture between two or more people conversing over a matter.
Cordiality can be said to be warmth, sincerity and friendliness that is shown when conversing with one another.
As an Administrator, the complex nature of needs and preferences using people, especially those at subordinate level of any organization; calls for courteous communication.
Courtesy balances between cordiality and tact.
Tact can be said to be the ability to deal with embarrassing situations carefully and without doing or saying anything that will annoy or upset other people; careful consideration in dealing with others to avoid giving offense; the ability to say right thing.
For Administrators to be effective the e communication style cannot be ignored, effective communication cannot take place without conscious use of tact, courtesy, cordiality.
Courtesy can be killed during a conversation through:
Sarcasm: A form of humor that is marked by mocking with irony, sometimes conveyed in speech with vocal over-emphasis. Insincerely saying something which is the opposite of one's intended meaning, often to emphasize how unbelievable or unlikely it sounds if taken literally, thereby illustrating the obvious nature of one's intended meaning. This is when the administrator dwells on the flimsy side of interpersonal relationship and he/she makes statements about their teachers carelessly. Administrators that are mutually close to a particular staff should not use that ground to talk anyhow to the staff.
Insults:To offend someone by being rude, insensitive or insolent; to demean or affront someone. Unintentional insults and indirect insults are usually used frequently in replies given by administrators and teachers
Talking down: The use of didactic and instructional tone in letters, memo or words. For example, "In a decent decent and Outstanding school like ours, Mrs Bimbo......" This is Mrs Bimbo is not decent and outstanding....
The listener is raging right inside if her, some teachers too will give back that insult too and we will start hearing their voices trying to overpower the other.
Presumptuousness: Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions they are every where about everyone. Making a decision based on assumption is what is wrong, very wrong as most assumptions are not true. As an Efficient administrator and Teacher put away all assumptions of your subordinate and superiordinate. We need to really check if the assumptions are true by giving the teacher a trail at a task and supervision must be done fairly. Also, assumptions of the confidence and capabilities of a teacher does not mean supervision should not be carried out.
Over-familiarity: Hmmmm.... This exist a lot in our schools as we helped our distant cousin, church members, sisters friends, etc get the job, so they don't concur to an official relationship between you and them they just want to do the things they casually do to you again at work which is wrong, we need to let them know again that at work our relationship is strictly official and any form of discrepancies with that there is a consequence to that.
Or else they will mess our jobs and we will end up achieving nothing at the end of the day.
Whining: One who whines about perceived problems; a complainer. So administrators seems to be only good at complaints and never will hear a suggestion from them, they complain in such a way that it seems there is nothing good about the job done or the teacher himself. When complaints are more than compliments it encourages stubbornness and resolute personality among the teachers and the simple task becomes more tedious to achieve. Some Administrators say "you ought yo know better", it makes the Administrator blind to Situational dictations and group dynamics.
Curtness: This is a state of been Brief or terse, especially to the point of being rude. It means one is Short or concise unnecessarily when discussing with someone, talking arrogantly, withholding some apart of the information which leads to inordinate brevity of the discussion. The teacher feel the administrator shows no concern for possible personal reasons.
Suspicion: Suspicion is a feeling or terse, especially to the point of being rude.
Short or concise doubt, distrust which is usually imaginary. As an administrator always suspecting your surbodinates' motives will surely show in your attitude when one is with the teacher. If What is being suspected of seem to be true, then it should be addressed in a face-to-face discussion or a meeting that allows for better understanding of both the teacher and the situation.
Accusations: Courtesy is sacrificed at the center of every accusations because the language is often fouled by bitter reaction to perceived misbehavior. This will surely happen in our school.... Using courtesy, tact, discretion, wisdom to handle issues bring out the truth easily; Anger will not, make enough findings before making any decision... So we don't make the wrong decisions.
As an administrator you are not to be predictable, dogmatic. Different situations require different strategies, so do each employee requires different communication and relational skill when dealing with them, and this makes us an excellent, effective, efficient Administrator. Our teachers too will be happy to work with us!
And our school will be great altogether!
Isn't this essential?
An essential thing that should be present in any educational institution is a LIBRARY..... It basically consist of Books, the Personnel, the Building and the users.
What is so essential about it
We get information there anytime we need them
It encourages accidental learning and enlarges the horizon of the learner
Allows for further research, questions, solutions
It boost the problem-solving instincts of our wards
It helps to foster intuitive thinking in the classroom
What does it take to have a library:
A spacious, well ventilated, well positioned and quiet room
A role of nice and durable shelves arranged as letter 'U' or letter 'E' with spacious walkways
A librarian to oversee the library
Library organogram showing authority chain
Library assistant to check on library users if they are not breaking the library rules and regulations
Front desk personnel to keep records of everyone that come to use the library
Someone to always return used books to their rightful place neatly on the shelves
We need a neatly demarcated tables and individual chairs to encourage privacy in the library
Library rules and regulations, and air fresher
A photocopy machine to make copies of pages of books that the students needs information from
An air-conditoner, constant power supply
Another sections with computers and Internet service to access E-books, online books
A printer to also print some needed pages
Books, Encyclopedias, World books, World Record books, magazines in the library - for both the students/wards and the teachers
Teachers copy of textbooks should be kept there, books on understanding an age range(toddlers, teenagers, pre-teens, etc)
One need to use a number code or letter code to code the way books are arranged on the books shelves
Have a plan to buy at least 2/5 books every 3months to update the library
While i was in school i loved the Library much than my classroom, i spent about 40% of my school hours in the library. I have been late to the classroom severally because i was in the library, i have missed classes because i was in the library.
Whenever i go into the library i am very curious, but when am leaving the library am more confident, my mind works faster,up my head is up because i now understand better.
The library was my hostel room in my school days, i wasn't leaving in the hostel, so when my friends where leaving the lecture premises for the hostel, i will also say am going to "my hostel" with a wink, with them knowing am going the Library till its evening, before i leave for home.
I love Libraries! Am sure there are students/ wards in your school that their heart yearns for a school library and they don't have one......
Schools, learning does not only takes place in the classrooms only!
Sunday, October 5, 2014
I love my Profession
20th World Teacher's day 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
Top Notch School Event
S
chool Events are those activities that we have like an award ceremony, End of session party, Carol Service, Open Day, Cultural day, Children's day and the likes.School events are actually a means of publicizing your school, it tells me what kind of school this is, where this school is going in the nearest future.
Parents gets to invite other parents, child's family relations get to come around, societal figures may come, it may get to be on the Internet, etc as the world is going global etc.
With all this we wouldn't want to leave a wrong or bad impression on the hearts on everyone.
We need to identify :
What kind of event are we holding? ( is it end of session, PTA night, Children's day, etc)
Outline WHY do we want to hold this event? (Aims, objectives, goals, of the event)
Who are we expecting at our event? ( list out all the names of the invitees and they must be relevant to the goal of the event)
How long will this event take? ( is it in Hours/ days/weeks? )
Who can handle the planning of this event well amongst all the available hands with me? ( maybe a teacher, head teacher, who is best at event planning that will all become a member of the events planning committee after identifying them, your number of committee is dependent on the size of the event, elect the proactive, efficient member to assist the Chairman of the Committee, or to Chair the Committee)
The Committee are to identify:
What do we need to have a successful event( the relevant resources needed to meet the outlined goal of the event - the colours, environment, location, venue, Master of Ceremony (MC), programme of the day, food, decoration, power supply, gifts, security,music, etc)
How do we get them?
How much will they cost?
Draft a budget for the event?
Send an invites to all the invitees
Assign tasks to carried out by other member of the committee
Give deadlines ( not so long) to every assigned task and ensure follow up on the individuals daily, weekly
Hold Frequent meetings to get feedbacks, make corrections, evaluate and chart the course again, create social media platform to encourage seamless communication amongst committee member
Sender Reminders to Invitees a week before
A DAY TO THE EVENT
Identify the time the event is actually starting
Contact the Master of the Ceremony (MC)
Go the event center/ hall ensure the place is ready for the next days program
Go with a Checklist of what ought to be ready and tick the ones that have been done, work more on what is not done yet.
On the D-DAY:
Go with the checklist again, check all over again
Everything should be ready an 1hour before the event start
who is in charge of what during the event?
Get the Mc available an hour before the event.
Have a BEAUTIFUL event....
Make your EVENT count....
And your School is heading for the top.....
We can do Better
Nigeria's call Obey
To Serve our father's land
with love and strength and faith
The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain
To serve with heart and might....
That is a part of our National Anthem, it says "to serve our father's land with love" .... hmmmm, when we love someone or something we are ready to go the extra mile for the person and that thing.
"The labour of our heroes past Shall never be in vain...." Hmmmm, some of our past leaders lost their blood and lives as they fought for the things we are now enjoying in Nigeria, so what is wrong with us this younger generation in position of authority to do the right thing......
What do you think our education sector will be on the next few years....
Will Nigerian education would have been better that people from overseas will fly in to study in Nigeria rather than what it is right now?
Will it be that only private schools will be up to the standards of the world?
When our very own government owned schools should be a role model.
We need to plan to achieve this with a stipulated day, month, week, year attached to our plans as deadline
I will suggest some solutions to some identified problems of Educational Planning in Nigeria.
The cart before the horse syndrome - This means doing the last thing first. Nigerians we need to always follow due process, and be patient and not boycott the laid down procedures. There ought to be a plan formulation, plan preparation, plan coordination, plan implementation, plan evaluation, etc should be done well efficiently by the appropriate authority dutifully. I would suggest that planning should be done by professional programs and project planners that are independent from external influences.Unprogressive administrative Traditions: This involves some subconscious administrative activities that has been in place for a long time in the system but so far it has not helped the system rather it has crippled it. It is high time we do away with irrelevant bureaucracy, nepotism, tribalism, flimsy conflicts, etc within our education system. We need to be re-oreientated on some administrative practices and their impacts on the education system and the economy at large, afterwards we set up new rules practices and sanctions to inculcate and encourage the new the practices.
Weak Database: Hmmm, it is in our subconscious to always be untruthful with information especially with governmental parastatals, may be because we were once bitten now we are shy (smiles). But for how long do we want to continue like this? We don't have accurate data about all our schools both qualitative and quantitative data. We need to be wise and get information from other means that are connected to schools at different levels through banks, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Birth registrations, external examinations, etc. We need to re-orientate the general public we need to inculcate better values into our society. Wrong data equals wrong planning, wrong planning equals wrong results.
Lack of Public support: We Nigerians we need change right, we need to trust us one more and we will not disappoint you again, we need answers from you, understand your real needs we need your views, what you think, even ideas from you. Educational Planners should partner with reputable organizations, get social support, organize orientations through various available platforms- social Media, conduct online surveys, etc.
Politics: Politics and Education, hmmm we cannot separate politics from the educational system because education is a segment of our political system too. But we need to identify irrelevant and relevant politics in the educational system, in terms that will this politics help or deteriorate the educational system. Yes we know that the authorities that decides for our education system is our political systems. We need to evaluate so far has partisan politics help the sector or made it worse.... So far it has made it worse so we need to take a new turn. We can't keep doing the same thing and expect the same results, Nigeria!
Inadequate Resources: Resources like Professional Educational Planners, Professional Curriculum planners and writers, Excellent statisticians, etc. Currently in our Educational system we have so many square pegs in Round holes, people who really are qualified for the Education sector are in other sectors of the economy because this economy has not really made an impact and members of the sector are looked down on. Its high time we only accept round pegs on square holes, square pegs in square holes, Education Professionals in other sectors should please be return to this sector. Also, our personnel should be well motivated not just only those at the very peak of this education sector, all needed and relevant educational resources should be adequately provided at the right time. Our available resources should be judiciously used, not mismanaged.
Proper Implementation : During implementation process there might be itch, but it is advisable to stick with the plans no matter what. We need People are don't easily change their minds to do this implementation.
It must be regularly inspected, evaluated to know if this is exactly what we took so long to plan.
Our Nigeria Education System can be better, if only we take other directions to aim at a better / same goal.
We actually communicate this... 2
THE WRITTEN WORDS:
It is a very powerful tool, which must be used. This is in 4 parts
a) understanding now this tool functions
b) how to get the best result using this tool
c) discussing the pitfalls one may encounter using this tool
d) the power of this tool when properly used.
It adds permanence to words, it is impersonal, there is time to think and strategize, change can be made and there is a choice of presentation, time, and place.
The receiver can either ignore the message or formulate an action plan to respond to the message. Here there is lack of personal interaction and unlimited power in written word when used constructively.
Communication can now be done through e-mail, websites, internet, social medium, etc. Speed, machine jargon, abbreviations, and giving common words a new meaning are all combined here.
The intent of the message may get lost in the transmission confusion, it’s worth extra time to be sure your message gets through the way you intend.
Any deviation along the machine will draw the error sign and lead one to spend hours of frustration trying to reach your objective.
It is easy to get lost in detail and forget that there are real people at both ends of the chain, don’t forget to establish a personal touch to establish a good reputation.
Not all data reliable, learn where you can find data you can trust. Don’t forget to strike a balance between what machines contribute and what roles humans play.
It is rated the number one communication tool in importance and retention, it’s a summation of all the communication tools.
It can be almost anything: thoughts, opinions, pictures, memories, impressions or incidents in your life that become embedded in the mind.
It can be bad or good, nonjudgmental listening and trust are the only ways to bypass or minimize the influence of bad experiences.
Build value into the relationship at every opportunity, when asked to go extra mile, go two.
Note that experiences are very fragile, carefully observe other party’s state of mind, they may be upset, stressed, etc; answer an upset person in a soft and calm way.
Always bury the past and concentrate on solving today’s problems.








































