AT THE BACK OF RESEARCH BACKED
MARECIL M GERMONES
Good decisions are data backed decisions, this is the primary premise why a lot of agencies and organizations generally rely on research as a primary source for informed decisions. The decisions of the Department of Education have always relied on research, which has proven to be an effective step since the department’s processes and operations have improved significantly in efficiency and effectiveness throughout the years. Surprisingly, one of the most overlooked problems with this premise is the compatibility of the results with the operations and processes of the agency at the micro level.
A good manager would tell you that there will never be a one size fits all for processes and systems of different organizations, but the realities of the policies implemented at the school level seems to be that the managers at the upper levels of the hierarchy believe the contrary. Implementation of policies which are on a national or division level hurts more schools than helps them. A lot of factors are often overlooked and data from the bases are often incompatible with all the schools. These overlooked factors result in compliances with compromises, often it becomes as bad as falsifying data just for a school to be compliant.
A good manager understands the learning curve, but at the macro level of the agency it seems that they have forgotten that things take time. One of the bad feedback to the upper level managers in the department is that if they want to implement something, they just implement it right away, making a number of educators label the department as “the department of change” the bad thing about this is that it costs a lot in terms of resources, morale and manpower hours for the schools. No good manager would tell you that suddenly shifting regulations and policies are good, but it seems that as educators we should be good sailors in these treacherous seas of ever changing tides and policies.
The learning curve is a concept taught to us early in our tertiary education and this proves to be one of the most crucial concepts to remember in management, implementations should not only consider the basis, but also the compatibility and the time it would take to realistically adapt and learn a policy.
-oOoTHE AUTHOR IS ADAS -III AT STA CRUZ ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, LUBAO PAMPANGA