In this study, an attempt was made to explore and examine the influence of changing paradigms on educational management. In approaching the chapter, the authors discussed the status-quo by describing the traditional management paradigm. The drivers to change which triggered off the rise of a new paradigm were highlighted and these dully led to a description of the new paradigm whose principles and theories were fully examined. The chapter then engaged a detailed analysis of the various changes in the education management and school administration field consequent to the shift in paradigms. The authors feel that an understanding of the major paradigms in education as well as those critical to educational management and administration is a universal calling. There is no gain saying, therefore, that this chapter will go a long way into improving educational management and administration both at structural level and at the school level.
TopIntroduction
With the dawn of the 21st century, an unprecedented wave of change has become part of the reality we live with. The days of mass production as well as standardized products do not only appear to be over but are being replaced swiftly by quality production (Jamali, 2004). Accordingly, the key issues for the future are variety, flexibility, and customization of whatever we do. This rising wave of change has not spared the field of education as well. The sweeping volcano has meant that the old policies and systems can no longer obtain within new dispensations at all and thus call for redress at all levels and times. Managers of educational systems and school leaders should be on the lookout as a consequence.
Accordingly there has been a paradigm shift: this paradigm is reflected within experiences, beliefs, and values that affect perceptions. According to the Wikipedia, a paradigm involves the following aspects:
Because paradigms affect our view of what is real and true, we are slow to change them. Indeed, without paradigms, our minds would constantly suffer from sensory overload. Our minds use paradigms to filter all sensory input.
Viacana & Pedrozo (2010) contend that the “adaptive decision perspective adopted by post‐normal science encourages the incorporation of human characteristics and potentialities that are currently neglected in management sciences”. Accordingly, such characteristics and potentialities may imply evolving from an understanding of the human mind: the direction in this case should be from an automatic data processor to a logic that allows us to consider the interaction between emotion and cognition as well as between these two and their environment, thus connecting individual‐organization‐society. Nevertheless, the view points to the need for proper conceptualization of paradigm shifts that equally influence understanding of key scientific issues today.
For a proper analysis of the influence of changing paradigms on educational management and school administration, it is imperative to reduce the analysis to the following aspects:
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A description of paradigms,
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Relevance of paradigms,
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A description of paradigm shifts,
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Changing paradigms in educational management,
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The effect of the changing paradigms on the elements of educational management and school administration,
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Barriers to effective change within the management and administration realm.
TopParadigms And Their Relevance
It is worth asking what a Paradigm is; and in attempting an answer to the same question, we argue that the word paradigm originates from the Greek paradeigma, para = “to place alongside”; deigma = “to show.” It means to show by placing alongside, as in an Example, Pattern or Model. Many authors have attempted a definition of the term paradigm (Jamali, 2004; Rosaldo, 1996). Thus to Rosado (1996) a paradigm is “a mental construct, or conceptual model, influenced by our socialization, which defines and delimits the way we perceive reality and is the basis of our worldview”. It is thus a particular way in which we things. Meanwhile Jamali (2004) states that a paradigm is “a framework of basic assumptions, theories and models that are commonly and strongly accepted and shared within a particular field of activity, at a particular point in time”.