Understanding the environments in which schools operate, Part 3: The economic environment

Understanding the environments in which schools operate, Part 3: The economic environment

Long time managers of schools (principals) as well as new managers need to constantly assess the economic environment of the country because the nature of the economic environment will determine the amount of resources that government, through the Ministry of Education, will make available to their schools. And the amount of resources that they get and use efficiently will determine the effectiveness of the school. Today, the economic environment in which schools operate is dire.

In 2009 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) calculated that if Jamaica’s public debt burden were divided by all members of the population at the time then “each Jamaican would carry a debt burden of US$7,920, roughly three times the average annual income per person” . This situation has not significantly improved since then and will not improve any time soon unless the economy experiences significant growth which it has not done in a very, very long time.
To put this issue in such personal terms the UNDP has brought home to us in a powerful way the severe nature of the country’s indebtedness. The extent of Jamaica’s indebtedness means that after Jamaica services its debt there is not much money left to invest in efforts at development.

Realising the state of the economic environment in the country, long time managers of schools should be engaged in a process of contemplation. They should be asking and finding answers to questions such as the following. How will we manage in this worsening economic environment? What strategies can we devise to offset some of the negative impact of insufficient resources? How can we productively involve the entire community in working with us to resolve some of the difficulties that our schools face? The bottom line is that they should be devising plans on how they can further negotiate their way through the financial challenges that they will continue to face in light of the continuing economic malaise of the country.
Persons who aspire to be managers of schools have to start putting on their thinking caps long before they accept positions as managers in the school system. Their major concern should be how they intend to do their jobs in an environment where resources that they consider vital to their adequately doing their jobs are limited. They need to accept the reality of which they will be a part. And like the long time managers of schools they will have to ask and answer some tough questions as they relate to their possible stewardship of schools.

Having accepted the reality of economic hardship that the country is experiencing, school managers should realise that their students are also impacted by the economic conditions of the country. When the economy shrinks, businesses are impacted and so is employment. According to the Statistical institute of Jamaica (STATIN) the unemployment rate as of July 2013 is 15.4%.

Of the more than 84% of the persons employed many are poor. That is, they have jobs and get paid at intervals. However, their remuneration is not enough to give them a decent standard of living. The managers of schools should realise that the fortunes or lack thereof of parents will impact the extent to which these parents will be able to meet their obligations as regards their children in school. Therefore, they have to devise plans to work with the parents in creative ways to ensure that they meet their obligations to the school. Many principals are already doing this. Others allow themselves to be stressed beyond measure because they say they do not have any resources, the parents don’t pay school fees and they don’t know what to do.
It is true that the amount that the government allocates to schools is not nearly adequate to do all the things that school managers want to do. However, managers of schools must realise that of the amounts that the government manages to scrape together to put a budget together, the education sector is given the biggest share. So, school managers have to work within the constraints imposed on them by the economic hardship that the country is undergoing.

There is no end in sight to this situation any time soon. Jake Johnston (2013) from the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a Washington D. C. Based Think Tank opines in an article, The Multilateral Debt Trap in Jamaica, that a solution to Jamaica’s problem of high indebtedness would be the multilateral agencies writing off Jamaica’s debt to them.


We can hope. However, in the meantime, managers of schools as well as managers of every other public institution in society will have to do the best they can with the resources they have.



Read the other parts of this article at the following links:

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