TRIPLE JOB

AURELIA M. RIVERA

What is the job of an educational administrator? One considers the range of activities that a school principal is involved in, she/ he can be viewed as a generalist, needing and relying on the expertise of others. Indeed the expertise that principals need to acquire is to know how to fit the pieces together.

Because the total program of teaching and learning, whether in the more formal arena of a classroom or in the school as a whole, could be performed better when it is coordinated effectively by the principal. In short, principals must help shape a safe and positive environment by providing adequate facilities and resources, so that teaching and learning is fostered more effect i vel y.

There are a number of distinctive functions that an administrator should perform to enhance teaching and learning, work that is very different from other fields of administration and management, as it is shaped and directed by the core business of teaching and learning.

Most of the time, educational administrator performed three fundamental functions which are administering meaning, administering community and administering excellence.

Administrators are expected to ensure that schools are able to provide opportunities for the students to discover meaning in their world— the meaning of nature, of human affairs and human relationships enabling them to learn beyond memorizing superficial knowledge for success of examinations.

Administering community demands that the administrators endeavor to transform the traditional separation of the individual from the community into their essential union. Creating more opportunities for cooperative learning and teamwork towards the creation of learning organizations could encourage this.

Educational administrator should promote and encourage high quality performance in schools in terms of not only productivity, innovations or technical virtuosity but more so in terms of the students’character and moulding him or her to be useful citizen and a member of the society.

Being an educational administrator entails fulltime job having to perform not just one, not two but three different tasks in articulating the shared vision and involvement of others in setting the goals and developing the strategies for the realization of the shared vision.

— oOo— The author is Head Teacher I at Cacutud Elementary School