Excellence is not what meets the eye!

Lal Fonseka

The word “effective” to me means quality. Then the question will arise what quality is. Quality means conformance to requirement when one discusses on Education.

In a school, the conformance to requirement is in three folds. As per our education system, they are knowledge, skills and attitudes. Are our schools falling in line with these requirements? The whole purpose of this article is to find solutions to this question.

Students’ discipline

As far as the discipline and the attitudes of our students are concerned, discipline of our students in general have been deteriorating day by day. This is a very pathetic situation. It is true that one or two effective schools take a thoughtful approach towards student discipline.

A majority of schools do not care the students’ attitudes and skills. They do always give priority to the knowledge-based education. Their main target is to achieve most number of higher grades in the competitive examinations and display a large board of students’ pictures that had excelled in such examinations just in front of the school entrance. Despite these high educational performances it is sad to hear frequent reports of violent incidents. It has now spread to the big match arena too.

Consider the following situation: Two schools located in Colombo which are considered as “sister schools.” Assume that they are approximately the same size, serve the same community, and the student populations are identical. However, in one school state controlled examination scores are low and half the students failed. In the other school, student examination scores exceed the country average and almost all students are eligible to enroll the university. Why this difference?

Effective schools

Under these circumstances, we do always label the school which has done well with examination results as an effective school and the other school is an in-effective school. Puzzled by such situations all over the world, researchers have attempted to determine what factors create successful or effective schools. Several studies have revealed a common set of characteristics, a five-factor theory of effective schools.

Whatever the findings and conclusions of these researchers, without any argument any reasonable man will agree that to convert a school in to an effective school, the first requirement will be to have a proper discipline among students.

Discipline is the structure that helps the child fit into the real world happily and effectively. It is the foundation for the development of the child’s own self-discipline. Effective and positive discipline is about teaching and guiding children, not just forcing them to obey. Disciplining children is one of the most important yet difficult responsibilities of the school authorities and there are no shortcuts. The hurried pace of today’s competitive examinations can be an obstacle to effective discipline.

The goal of effective discipline is to foster acceptable and appropriate behaviour in the child and to raise emotionally mature adults. A disciplined person is able to postpone pleasure, is considerate of the needs of others, is assertive without being aggressive or hostile, and can tolerate discomfort when necessary.

Thus, effective discipline means discipline applied with mutual respect in a firm, fair, reasonable and consistent way. The goal is to protect the child from danger, help the child learn self-discipline and develop a healthy conscience and an internal sense of responsibility and control. It should also instill values.

Researchers say that effective schools are able, through these five factors, to promote student achievement with discipline. Let us look at these classic five factors.

1. Strong leadership
2. A clear school mission
3. A safe and orderly climate
4. Monitoring student progress
5. High expectations

A brief explanation of these five factors theory is analysed below.

Factor 1: Strong leadership

There is a very popular saying that in an effective school, you cannot have a bad principal and at the same time you cannot have a good principal in an in-effective school. Without making extra efforts to analyse the above saying, we have to admit that the prime requirement of any institution to make it to an effective institution is to have an effective leadership.

Leadership style of effective principal has been collaborative, actively seeking faculty participation. Not only does he want his staff to participate in decision making, but he has to give them the opportunity to try new things-and even the right to fail.

For example, effective principals allow teachers to learn through errors. One particular principal whom I know allow teachers to learn a great deal from their experiences, and he let them try again even when their first attempt is failed.

The second attempt is a great success. “He sees failure as an opportunity for change,” One teacher commented. Still other teachers describe him with superlatives, such as “he is the lifeblood of this organism” and “the greatest human being I have ever known.” However, in today’s context, we are hard to hear such beautiful comments.

Researchers say that students make significant achievement gains in schools in which principals

* Articulate a clear school mission

* Are a visible presence in classrooms and hallways

* Hold high expectations for teachers and students

* Spend a major portion of the day working with teachers to improve instruction

* Are actively involved in diagnosing instructional problems

* Create a positive school climate

Factor 2: A clear school mission

In effective schools, good principals somehow find time to develop a vision of what that school should be and to share that vision with all members of the educational community. Successful principals can articulate a specific school mission, and they stress innovation and improvement.

In contrast, less effective principals are vague about their goals and focus on maintaining the status quo. They make such comments as, “We have a good school and a good faculty, and I want to keep it that way.”

In our country, a majority of principals are very selfish and plays a one man-show.

He or she does not care what his or her academic staff has to say. He or she does not recognise the innovative thinking of them. It is essential that the principal share his or her vision, so that teachers understand the school’s goals and all work together for achievement.

Unfortunately, Most of our teachers say that they have either no contact or infrequent contact with one another during the school day.

In less effective schools, teachers lack a common understanding of the school’s mission, and they function as individuals charting their own separate syllabus.

In my opinion, the principal should share his or her vision not only with teachers but also with parents. When teachers work cooperatively and parents are connected with the school’s mission, the children are more likely to achieve educational success with high discipline.

In our school system, whatever the regulations introduced by the Ministry in barring the Principals collecting money from parents, they continue to do so without any fear. Because they need to have more and more social functions involving students sometimes spending huge amount of money, energy and the most precious time.

Academic successes too are achieved by the students not due to the efforts of the school. It is very rare if we could find a student who has done excellently well in an examination without the assistance of tuition classes.

Factor 3: A safe and orderly climate

Certainly before students can learn or teachers can teach, schools must be neat and safe. Just a couple of weeks ago, implementing 6S and 3R concepts in 100 schools in the country were concluded under my direct supervision.

This project was commenced in 2009 and continued for four years. Unfortunately of these 100 schools, not even a mere 25% were able to sustain the project which is a very sad situation.

When one considers the amount money, the sponsoring bank spent, the word one could use is nothing other than “sad.”

An unsafe and untidy school is ineffective. When the class rooms are un-cleaned and untidy, you cannot expect from students to show their maximum potentials. Nearly all public school teachers (98 percent) and most students (93 percent) report that their schools are disorganised and the environment is messy. Due to these short-comings, the public considers these schools as lack disciplined.

Factor 4: Monitoring student progress

There is a school located in Jayanthipura, Polonnaruwa. I noticed an one particular hall is named by using the name of the student who had obtained the best results of G.C.E (O/L) examination to recognise his feat.

This name could only be replaced by another student who could break the existing record. What a beautiful and innovative method this school has introduced to motivate the students.

In an effective school, students should have a clear sense of how they are doing in their studies: All students should keep progress charts in their notebooks.

In a school in the Galle District, teachers had a system of assessing the individual strengths and weaknesses of their students. Teachers refer to student folders that contained thorough records of student scores on standardised tests, as well as samples of classwork, homework and performance on monthly tests.

Effective schools carefully monitor and assess student progress.

Factor 5: High expectations

In effective schools, teachers hold high expectations that students can learn, and they translate these expectations into teaching behaviours.

They set objectives, work toward mastery of those objectives, spend more time on instruction, and actively monitor student progress. They are convinced that students can succeed.

Do high expectation work if students do not believe they exist? Probably not, and that is too often the case. As per the recent research, while a majority of secondary school principals believe that their schools hold such expectations for their students, only 39 percent of teachers believe this to be true and even more discouraging.

Only one in four students believe their school holds high expectations for them. We need to do a better job of communicating these expectations to students, and making certain that these expectations truly challenge students.

When the teachers hold high expectations for their own performance, the entire school will benefit. When striving for excellence, these teachers felt that no matter how well a class was taught, next time it could be taught better.