An Analysis of the Essential Abilities and Work Art of Educational Administration Staff in Chinese Universities

Transcription

1 An Analysis of the Essential Abilities and Work Art of Educational Administration Staff in Chinese Universities LIU Huimin 1, YU Bin 2 Academic Office, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, , P.R China College of Business Administration, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, , P.R China 1. liuhm@zjut.edu 2. cnyubin@zjut.edu.cn Abstract: This paper indicates three essential abilities of the education administration staff, which includes political and ideological ability, ability of ethics, and professional administration ability. They are very important elements that are crucial to the success in the higher education management, and the administration staff has to learn and improve these three abilities. It also points out three kinds of work arts such as time operating art, language art and performance art of the administration staff. The authors deduce that the high education institutions not only focus on the staff s knowledge, ability and manner, but also require the staff to adopt and master educational administration work art such as scientific methods of work, and continually improve staff s capability of using these methods and techniques, in order to achieve the scientific and artistic human-central management level. Keywords: essential ability, work art, administration staff, higher education 1. Introduction The academic administration staff in the higher education institutions is the direct organizers and managers of teaching activities. With deepening the higher education reform, the updated concept of education, the change of management system, the administration staff is required by higher criteria. Academic administrators should work continuously learning and practice, and strive to improve their overall capabilities and overall qualities of administration in order to guarantee the stability and improve the quality of teaching. Three essential abilities and three work arts can be adapted to the higher education and it is development under the new situation. In the authors mind, the following three aspects of the education administration abilities should be improved (Figure 1): Political and Ideological Ability Ability of Professional Ethics The essential abilities of educational administration Education Administration Ability Figure 1. Three essential abilities of educational administration staff 2. Political and Ideological Ability Firstly, the administration staff must have a certain theory of psychology in the education cultivation, should hold on the principles in the educational work, and conscientiously study Chinese traditional educational theory and advanced international theory which can guide their jobs. They must have high professional level and responsibility. The staff also should obey the laws, work instructions and regulations, as well as firmly establish a correct view on the world, and view on life and values. The academic administration staff also needs to enhance the minds of serving the education career 795

2 enthusiastically, so as to be full of work enthusiasm and wisdom to educate and manage the students. 3. Ability of Professional Ethics 3.1 The academic staff has to respect and care the education jobs The educational administration work is tough, trivial, complex and arduous. From the scheduled curriculum, college management, performance management, monitoring the quality of teaching to the setup, collection, and control of the academic files, as well as the teaching specific work, the administration staff must have the ideas to respect their own jobs with applying the straight-thinking work style, implementing hard working, using dedication spirit within a high degree of responsibility. 3.2 Focus on and master the overall situation, and prefer to the cooperation The educational administration work is a collective management and a team work. It is difficult to be finished only depends on individual or a small number of people s effort. We must rely on the collective cooperation in order to complete the entire educational administration work well. The different jobs of educational administration are actually integration. They are independent and mutual infiltrated. As a result, the internal management division of the education administration is relative and absolute cooperation. In the process of the work, the administrators should keep communicating; discuss the view of points; overcome the weaknesses to achieve the mutual cooperation, and these elements are all important to improve the work efficiency. 3.3 The gains and pains are not important, but the devotion is crucial The educational administration is an ordinary and tough job, Staff is always busy, and pays lots of time, energy and painstaking effort on it in the process, but whether there is the appropriate reward and dynamic successful feeling depends on their ethic ideas. At the same time, the administration work is a long-term, continuous, and indirect so that some people may not understand the importance of academic administration. This requires that administration staff do not care the gains and loss, but have to keep enthusiasm, as well as maintain a good attitude, so as to ensure the educational administration work goes smoothly and makes more people especially the academic teaching staff to understand. 4. Professional Administration Ability 4.1 A solid management theoretical knowledge The key of educational administration is about organization management. College administration, economic management and modern management theories such as the control theory, information theory, the system of management theory, has a universal significance to the educational administration. The educational administration staff has to be management experts who must be capable to the management of scientific knowledge and they also have to apply the education principles, policies, laws and regulations to grasp the work of the educational administration system. 4.2 Skillful educational administration ability The administrators in Chinese Universities should be familiar with the educational administration s principles, requirements, procedures, and they have basic management practices, such as statistics, monitoring, feedback, research and other basic skills, thereby let all tasks go effectively and smoothly when they operate the Universities education system. 4.3 Organizational and commanding capabilities The educational administration work is complex, and the staff must have the abilities of teaching management, analyzing teaching, organizing teaching activities. And they also could coordinate the relationship between the relevant departments to fully achieve the cooperation of all functional departments so that all the work can be carried out in a systematic approach. 796

3 4.4 Ability of learning and innovation With the development of technology and the popularity of computers and networks, the modernization of educational administration management, teaching methods, teaching information exchange is formed. The education system reform, management system change make the educational administration to face the new challenges. Therefore, the educational administration staff must learn how to learn, grasp and improve the modern educational management techniques. For the emerging situation and new problems in the higher education administration, it is necessary to analyze and evaluate situation and problems timely, and continuously reform and innovate the new management models, so that we could complete the educational administration with high efficiency and high-quality. In order to accomplish the success in the higher education administration, an excellent administration staff should have a good political and ideological ability, excellent ability of professional ethics, excellent professional ability and the excellent manner. 5. Work Art Requirements to the Education Administration Staff Work art is a creative flexible working method. The work art of high education institutions not only focuses on the staff s knowledge, ability and manner, but also requires the staff to adopt and master scientific methods of work, and continually improve the capacity of using these methods and techniques, in order to achieve the scientific and artistic human-central management level. 5.1 Time operating arts of the educational administration staff In Chinese Universities, educational administration is rich in content and bars staggered, which is similar to factories "scheduling". The educational administrators should participate in the teaching plan making, clearing objectives of professional training, understanding the study duration, course design and teaching process, mastering the general academic planning. Their tasks also include understanding the principles of laws and completing the curriculum arrangement, examination, student registration, management and graduation by following the college academic calendar. Rationally using time, properly arranging the work orders, which will scatter work interludes. One of the key points is that choosing the best strategy, measure and effective solution at first time is crucial to improve the efficiency in the educational operating system. The administration staff needs to master the work art of scientifically planning time, which can be summarized as reflection in the following areas: (1)Time plan; it means plan the work to be completed by the order of proper classification, by the hours, by days, weeks which is ranked in the order, and then implement and complete work as planned. (2)Time focus; it means to merge the "free time" which could be assembled together to get a longer timing block. At the same time, they can put the relevant jobs together, and deal with them in different periods that focus on the different education targets. (3)Time statistics; it means the staff constantly adjust the work schedules according the working records. They have to analyze and evaluate all kinds of the time tables weekly, monthly, quarterly to improve utilization of time. 5.2 Language art of the educational administration staff The use of language is also an art. Language, it includes both day-to-day discourse communication, and formal written expression. Enhance the ability of oral expression (speaking ability). The staff in higher education administration is required to have good verbal skills. They need to communicate, consult with, and explain to other teachers and tutors, such as conveying leader s opinion, staff s suggestion and comments when they adjust timetables, manage the examination, and deal with the college-related matters. It is required that the staff has amiable tones, decent language, concise speaking, clear expression, and comprehensive oral ability. Enhance the ability of written expression (writing ability). The educational administration staff often has to write something such as the educational administration plan, review, manuscripts and key 797

4 lessons notice, notices of meetings, examination instruction, and minute records, etc., and also has to write the opinions, suggestions and comments on the educational administration, discussion paper and experience report. This requires that the staff should continually improve the capability of written expression, reinforce the fundamental skill to be work art. 5.3 Performance art of the educational administration staff Behavior is the most direct performance to a person's work art. Decent behaviors can often defuse the complexity of the work, and play multiplier effects. Performance art is very important in the educational administration work, which mainly involves: General controlling art The educational administration t is a comprehensive sector. It consists of the extensive contacts and numerous affairs. If the staff is not good at integrating affairs, the work efficiency cannot be high. To grasp the overall management and ordered arrangements, this work art reflects in both time and space. If the administration is good at controlling the overall situation and commanding all forces, it can comprehensively utilize the conditions both subjective and objective, and can master the various internal and external relations to achieve the overall goal. On the aspect of the time, it should emphasize the order; on the aspect of the space, it should pay more attention on balance between time and space. Some task is more important, some task is more urgent, and others are neither important nor urgent. If they cannot analyze well, the result will be pain more, gain less, even have error results or disasters. To the conventional work and urgent work, it is necessary to finish the urgent work firstly. The administration also does not give up the routine work. To the target work and non-target work, it is necessary to focus on the target work. When a set of tasks should be done, it is necessary to deal with the tasks that depend on the specific situations. If some tasks can be merged, they can be treated as a single work when the administration staff deals with the tasks Decision-making art This work art means that the administration staff should be good at identifying the merits, weighing the pros and cons, gains and losses, directing the full academic staff and the students, to make decision decisively. The administration staff often encounters a large number of random decision-making, the so-called "dynamic" and "act decisively" is such a decisive and timely decision-making art. The decisive, resolute decision-making means that people are able to choose the precise expression after careful consideration. The word decisive refers to capture the opportunity, can be vigorous and resolute decision-making. The quality of decision-making directly relates to the implementation of the results, which relates to the effectiveness of educational administration. In the teaching infrastructure, discipline, profession, curriculum design and decision-making, if the education administration staff makes decision which is not based on the scientific methods and comprehensive analysis, it will be obviously wrong when it is applied in the implementation system Coordination art The role of an educational administration staff is an agent, a chain, a bridge, they should communicate with leaders, students and teachers in the universities. In some cases, they are educational waiters. These require that they must keep sharp reaction, so that they can take the initiative actions and take measures to deal with problems timely, can master the situation, communication and coordination fully. The cooperation awareness and communication skill are the specific expression of coordination art. They should coordinate the relationship between the leadership and the teaching staff, should think from multi-angles, comprehensive various views when the institutions meet problems, and then select the best option to implement the decision quickly and effectively. When receive the complaints from teachers, students or visitors, the administration staff should be nice, modest, amiable, and use warm words, courteous and polite manners to deal with all problems and keep relations well. 6. Conclusion After analyze in the parts above, the education administration staff really need three essential abilities to deal with the affairs in the universities. The administration staff of higher education 798

5 institutions also needs three kinds of work arts including time operating art, language art and performance art which combined with some tips of work arts. Actually, the divisions of work arts and essential abilities influence the staff and should be mixed and adopted as integration by the educational administration. (Figure 2). 1. Political & Ideological Ability 2. Ability of Professional Ethics a. respect and care b. cooperation c. devotion 3. Administration Ability A. Knowledge B. Skill C. Capabilities D. Learning & Innovation Target: The human-central management level Educational Administration Staff 1. Time operating art A. Time Plan B. Time Focus C. Time Statistics 2. Language art a. Oral Speaking Art b. Written Expression Art 3. Performance art a. General controlling art b. Decision-making art c. Coordination art Figure 2. The management target with the essential abilities & the work arts In the educational operation, for example, in the teaching process, often appears some unexpected situation. The administration staff also needs a coordinating art and reaction capability that means the staff must hold, mix and apply three abilities and three work arts together. Reference [1] Zhang Jing, A study of the work arts of teaching administration staff in the Universities, [J]. Journal of Science and Education : (in Chinese) [2] Philip Hallinger, Kenneth Leithwood, Culture and educational administration: A case of finding out what you don t know you don t know, [J] Journal of Educational Administration, 1996, vol.34: [3] Robert E. Slavin, Perspectives on Evidence-Based Research in Education What Works? Issues in Synthesizing Educational Program Evaluations, [J] Educational Researcher, Jan 2008; vol.37: [4] Zhu Xiangsheng, On the college dean management innovation [J]. Jiangsu Social Sciences (1): (in Chinese) [5] Chen Xiaohong, The art of improving the educational administration of the university [J]. Journal of Yancheng Teachers College (Humanities & Social Sciences Edition).2006 (6): (in Chinese) [6] Philip Hallinger and Ronald H. Heck, Reassessing the Principal's Role in School Effectiveness: A Review of Empirical Research, , [J] Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 32, No.1, 5-44 (1996) [7] Robert W. Lissitz and Karen Samuelsen, A Suggested Change in Terminology and Emphasis Regarding Validity and Education[J] Educational Researcher, Nov 2007; vol.36: [8] Peter A. French, Ethics and College Sports: Ethics, Sports, and the University [M] Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2004, ISBN: