New year, same challenges in the education sector, Part 6

Performance of the administrative staff

One of the challenges that the education system faces is that of getting the administrative staff to raise its levels of performance. The administrative staff in schools has very important roles to play in the education system. They, like the principals and teachers, have important roles to play in helping schools achieve their objectives. They do the following:

• Provide Administrative Support - First, they provide administrative support to the principals of schools, but they also provide 'policy support' in disseminating the articulated visions of principals for their schools. They do this dissemination of the visions of principals for their schools literally or figuratively through their interactions with all categories of staff, students, parents and the wider community.

• Manage Perception - Second, since they, more often than not, are the first link between the school and the wider community - parents, businesses,  civic groups among other such groups - they influence the type of perceptions of their schools that this community will form. Therefore,  the quality of their interactions with this community whether by telephone, in writing or in face to face interactions is going to determine the quality of the relationships that these groups will initially forge with the schools.

Some members of the administrative staff in a number of schools do not seem to recognise the importance of their roles in their schools. As a result they, at times, display unacceptable behaviour to stakeholders.

• Manage Resources - The administrative staff is responsible for managing the resources of the schools in which they work. The resources that they manage are many and varied - the plant and its contents, the money, students' records, books and other learning resources, the communication between the school and the wider community among other resources.

They need to be fastidious in the management of these resources because poor management of these resources will negatively impact their schools in terms of having to contend with:

•  'broken down plants in which the school community is forced to work

•  reduced sums of money with which the schools have to work, which means fewer needs being met,  lawsuits and general embarrassment

•  the labels of being incompetent and careless that frustrated stakeholders will affix to schools when they are not quick to respond to their needs and/or are unable to respond to their needs because records are missing or misplaced, for example

•  frustrated and/or disinterested students

•  ill-will from the community.

To improve the performance of administrative staff in their interactions with stakeholders of schools, they ought to be trained and monitored and implored to be professional when they are interacting with this community. A number of schools have been hosting seminars on customer service for all members of staff. However, in more than a few instances, some members of staff still refuse to display any of the 'best practices' with respect to their jobs to which they have been introduced in these seminars.


However, the management of schools, that is committed to creating a performance oriented culture in their schools, should realise that this goal is a work in progress that will only come to fruition through committed leadership which is evident in the examples that it sets.

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