With ever greater demands being placed on education establishments, both educationally and managerially, pressures on education leaders and their staff have never been higher. Schools and colleges are now directly responsible for managing their budgets, HR, payroll, IT, property, the recruitment of their staff as well as their core responsibilities for teaching and learning. Unfortunately, in my experience, the reality of this means head teachers’ time and attention often has to be taken from their core responsibilities to deal with these other matters. This could be of disadvantage to children and young people’s learning. So how can education leaders best cope with increasing managerial and administrative burdens?
Historically, schools and colleges were provided with all of their support requirements by their local authority. However, from the late 1980s legislation began to pass more responsibility to schools and colleges. Ensuing government policy developments have seen the autonomy of education establishments emphasised.
This has largely been a very positive development, placing responsibility for educational and managerial decisions at a level where they can best be taken within the various national and local policy frameworks. In turn this has also allowed local authorities the ability to focus on their principal responsibilities for community leadership and strategic development around local needs. However, the reality of these developments means that education leaders are not only responsible for the education of learners, but also the successful management of their schools and colleges, which have effectively become small to medium size businesses.
Unsurprisingly, and like many businesses, schools and colleges have found over the years that “outsourcing” their support requirements ensures that demands on their time and attention are kept to a minimum and matters are handled by the experts. Originally this was wily nily to their local authority. Since incorporation, colleges have largely done it for themselves. Most schools still buy in their services from their local authorities irrespective of whether this secures best value for money. Moreover, with the various services required, many schools are currently managing contracts with a number of separate suppliers.
So what is the answer? First and foremost, with the increasing financial pressures, schools and colleges must work with suppliers offering best value for money. Secondly, I would suggest that schools and colleges should consider working with companies that are able to provide a combination of services. This enables a simpler relationship, synergies and efficiencies across services, a clear focus on the institution’s needs and trust to be built up.
As a business, this is the way we are increasingly seeking to work with our customers. As an already trusted provider of that most important service, the recruitment of teachers and support staff, it is a natural transition for us. We have won the trust of our schools through providing a highly efficient service at a fraction of the costs of traditional paper-based advertising, across the most accessible medium – the web. Since being established in 2000 we now work with over 9000 schools throughout England and Wales and all have welcomed the idea of Eteach extending our services.
Regardless of whether you work with us, or one of our competitors, schools should look to learn lessons from the business community. The more suppliers one uses, the more time is needed to manage relationships and deal with issues.
Ultimately, utilising the skills of a business that can deliver the majority of your requirements ensures that education leaders can more easily concentrate on the job that is really important; developing teaching and learning.
Crucially however, when you work with suppliers, ensure that it is with companies that you can trust and which will be “on-hand”, both off and on line.
