Education management in modern russian conditions: perspective of educational infrastructure development of socially and economically advanced territories

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Institute of Education Management of the Russian Academy of Education

Education management in modern Russian conditions: perspective of educational infrastructure development of socially and economically advanced territories

Kuznetsov A.N.

In recent years, special attention is paid to the territories of advanced social and economic development in the Russian Federation [2], [8], [9]. The need to create in these territories the favorable conditions for attracting investments, ensuring accelerated socioeconomic development, and ensuring the vital activity of the population with the necessary socioeconomic conditions is emphasized [11]. In this regard, conducting a study to determine the specific features of the management of the development of the regional educational infrastructures of the Russian Federation that are formally assigned to be priority territories and territories of advanced development appears to be highly relevant [2].

The analysis of publications on this research issue allowed to establish that the problem of improving the educational infrastructure is widely considered in foreign studies conducted on the basis of materials collected in Mexico, the Czech Republic, the United States, Sweden, Japan, and other countries. In the scrutinized research papers, consideration of the quality of the educational infrastructure is regarded as a basis for understanding the processes of change in education at different levels (i.e. national, regional, school, etc.). Researchers note that the level of infrastructure development may have a supportive effect on the changes in education, as well as appear a restrain for the latter [11], [12].

Methods

For the research in the said field, one needs to begin by defining the context in which education management should be implemented today. Russian researcher A. Novikov [3], in his book Post-industrial education, outlined as the main problems of education that have arisen in the new - i.e. post-industrial conditions - the following:

- denationalization of educational organizations;

- the problem of the redistribution of youth flows as a labor and educational resource of the economy;

- introduction of high technologies in education;

- geographical diversification of the Russian education (development of regional educational subsystems);

- changes in the structure of labor in a post-industrial society;

- new social (`class') opposition;

- change the content (content) of the concept of `education'.

The uncertainties faced by a modern manager (including a school principal, a university rector, a head of the department of the Ministry of Education, etc.) include, these:

- high uncertainty of both the final result and the requirements for the organization and implementation of processes, which leads to a high level of uncertainty when making management decisions;

- the need to simultaneously ensure sustainability and a given level of quality of the main components of the educational process and respond to the ever-increasing requirements for the introduction of innovations;

- the extreme complexity of the control of the pedagogical process, as a creative process;

- the need to use special methods of motivation and incentives for educators;

- the imperfection of scientific and methodological support of the education management process;

- the invasion of foreign trends and organizations in the Russian education system.

All these - to one degree or another - determine the specifics of management in the field of education. But, as management practice and analysis of publications on the topic show, not everything is so “linearly dependent.”

Despite the urgency of the `third revolution in management', the modern system of management of Russian education is characterized by an approach that conceptually fits into the `school of human relations' described in the works of A. Maslow, M. Follett and E. Mayo [5], that performed in the first quarter of the 20th century as a part of a behavioral approach. For Russia, the human factor is still very significant as the main element of the effective organization of educational activities. It is important to meet the personnel's need for communication, belonging to a certain social class (`school intelligentsia'), recognition / respect (from colleagues, superiors, students, parents, etc.), and self-expression (through teaching and management activities, including methodological creative).

Unfortunately, one cannot argue that the implementation of this approach to management (the `school of human relations') led to a wide involvement of non-professionals with the Russian management. In addition, a significant role here is played by the desire for `democratization of management': expansion of management teams, extensive and active delegation of powers, involvement of pseudo-professional activists, a wide range of stakeholders, often without relevant training and management experience; all this, as stated, should provide “participative control”.

Continuing the development of the idea of the significance of “human relations”, we note that in the wide context of Russian culture, social factors of management are extremely important. And a vivid example here is the urgent problem of internal conflict of goals in education - an axiological conflict between participants in educational relations (teachers, parents, students, school administration) [1]. Without going deep (due to lack of opportunity due to the format of the current paper) to address this problem, we just say that, for example, informatization in general, and informatization of management, in particular, including the introduction of the information technologies for implementing internal and external communication as part of the school's activities, the availability of information about trends in the education system and the activities of the organization, including `information noise' - all these tend not to simplify, but, on the contrary, to complicates the interaction, thus preventing the achievement of mutual understanding and enforcement of the purposes of the stakeholders of education to some `common denominator'.

The next important aspect that is important to notice is: the management system of the educational organization is an open system [1]. In its design, implementation, monitoring and control, interaction and consideration of the interests of all stakeholders (participants in educational relations, executive authorities, the local community, the state, etc.) is necessary.

For the Russian conditions, appropriate and preferable for both educational organizations and educational networks, apparently, it is necessary to consider the line-staff structure of leadership. From among the main advantages of this type of structure, the main point is highlighted - improving the quality of preparing solutions for content-new tasks; as instances here, we may mention new short-term educational projects or programs for which it is inefficient to create a new structural unit. This implies the involvement of experts from different departments. The difficulty - and the risks associated with it - usually lies in building the appropriate (maybe, even formalized) and effective horizontal coordination both between employees and between the heads of departments.

An important issue too is the provision of quality management in the education system. In this regard, in particular, there is a need for the design and development of professional standards for heads of educational institutions [10]. At the same time, the following criteria can be defined as performance criteria for the organization's activities (including its management):

1) effectiveness, as the degree of achievement of the objectives of the activities of the educational institution;

2) quality, as the correlation of the characteristics of the educational services provided with the standards and requirements of participants in educational relations; educational infrastructure regional

3) productivity, as the ratio of the volume of educational services provided in natural value and other indicators and the corresponding costs of resources;

4) cost-effectiveness, as the ratio of the necessary and actual consumption of resources of different types and categories;

5) innovation activity, as the introduction of innovations in various activities of general educational organizations.

In the same context, in Russia, there arrears an interestingly implemented combination of the Process Approach with the Systems Approach. The Process Approach views management functions as interrelated; management is seen as a process, since working to achieve goals with the help of others is a series of continuous, interrelated actions. And here, management functions as a `process' actions come to the fore. At the same time, signs of the implementation of the Systems Approach are also obvious. An illustration here can be a draft of the professional standard of the head of a secondary educational organization being developed now [10], where the two sub-systems are distinguished: (1) management of the educational process (implementation of educational programs), and (2) management of the activities of the secondary educational organization (in terms of administration in the organization). Since the first and second subsystems are virtually inseparable, we can claim their synergy.

At the same time, the head of the [secondary] educational organization should be ready to implement management functions in a changing social, political, and economic context [1]; therefore, a situational approach is important. From the above we may conclude that among the main aspects of management decisions in the field of education there should be considered these ones: socio-psychological, organizational, personnel (availability of high-quality personnel, characterized by readiness in a wide and narrow sense), legal and economic (including resource-effective).

Conclusion

Summing-up, it is noteworthy to say that, despite the specifics of education management in modern Russian conditions, this socially and culturally specific sort of management can and should be of high quality and efficiency. The analysis of the regulatory documents and publications on the considered research issues confirmed the relevance and importance of conducting a study in the measures and some further efforts that may be undertaken to improve the scientific and methodological support of this field of activity: this is expected to help increase the level of preparedness - in both a broader and a narrower senses of the term - of education management system employees to face the previously experienced and the novel “challenges”.

As is expected, the fore-presented research findings on the particular traits of Russian management will feature a follow-up effect on the provision of a higher level of management on the considered narrower field - i.e. the management of the development of the regional educational systems, with the special focus on development of the objects of the regional educational infrastructure.

References

1. Косырев В.П. Моделирование отбора содержания профессиональной подготовки на основе компетентностного подхода / Косырев В.П., Кузнецов А.Н. // Вестник Федерального государственного образовательного учреждения высшего профессионального образования «Московский государственный агроинженерный университет имени В.П. Горячкина». 2006. № 2. - С. 24.

2. Кузнецов А.Н. Совершенствование образовательной инфраструктуры территорий опережающего развития: постановка проблемы / Кузнецов А.Н. // Муниципальное образование: инновации и эксперимент. 2018. №6. - С. 6-13.

3. Новиков А.М. Постиндустриальное образование / Новиков А.М. - М.: Издательство «Эгвес», 2008. - 136 с.

4. Barrett P. The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning: A Synthesis of the Evidence. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / Barrett P. // The World Bank, 2019. - Рр. 41-45.

5. Follett Mary P. Creating Democracy, Transforming Management / Follett Mary P. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. - Р. 34

6. Hong K., Zimmer R. Does Investing in School Capital Infrastructure Improve Student Achievement? / Hong K., Zimmer R. // Economics of education review, 53, 2016. - Рр. 143-158.

7. Hopkins M., Woulfin S. L. School system (re)design: Developing educational infrastructures to support school leadership and teaching practice / Hopkins M., Woulfin S. L.//. Journal of educational change, 16(4), 2015. - Рр. 371-377.

8. Kuznetsov A. Accessibility vs. Availability of Education as Two Key Phenomena of Education Quality Assurance and Education Management: Infrastructural Development Perspective / Kuznetsov A. INTED2019 Proceedings, 2019. - Рp. 7923-7932.

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10. Kuznetsov A. Research in Community Competency of School Administrators within Professional Standard Development / Kuznetsov A., Fedorchuk Yu. // International Conference on the Development of Education in Eurasia (ICDEE 2019). -- May 2019. -- Pp. 75-80.

11. Skobeltsina K.N. Research on Public Satisfaction with Educational Infrastructure of Advanced Development Territories / Skobeltsina K.N., Kuznetsov A.N. // International Conference on the Development of Education in Eurasia (ICDEE 2019). -- May 2019. -- Pp. 36-41.

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Abstract

The article deals the sociocultural and organizational peculiarities of management that are characteristic of Russia. The focus is placed on the management in the field of secondary education. The problem is considered in terms of the possible achievement of a Russia's national objective, i.e. increasing the level of accessibility/availability and quality of secondary education by means of the development of the educational infrastructure of the regions of the Russian Federation, which are formally assigned to be the priority territories, or territories of advanced social and economic development. To carry out a scientific analysis of this problem, the author refers to the studies of the leading Russian and international methodologists in the fields of management and education, as well as descriptions of the practice of application of the relevant scientific approaches. The results of the study of Russian management features will allow in the future to provide a higher level of educational management, including provision of the regional educational systems with objects of the educational infrastructure.

Keywords: education management, educational infrastructure, priority development territories, advanced development territories, Russian management, secondary education.

Работа посвящена социокультурным и организационным особенностям управления, характерным для России, причем особое внимание уделяется управлению в сфере общего образования. Проблематика рассматривается в свете решения государственной задачи - повышения уровня доступности и качества общего образования посредством совершенствования образовательной инфраструктуры регионов Российской Федерации, отнесенных к приоритетным территориям и территориям опережающего социально-экономического развития. Для выполнения научного анализа указанной проблематики автор обращается к исследованиям ведущих российских и зарубежных методологов управления и образования, а также описаниям практики применения соответствующих научных подходов. Результаты проведенного исследования российских особенностей управления позволят в дальнейшем обеспечивать более высокий уровень образовательного менеджмента, в том числе в области обеспечения региональных систем образования объектами общеобразовательной инфраструктуры.

Ключевые слова: управление образованием, образования инфраструктура, территории опережающего развития, особенности российского управления, общее образование.

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