Strategic quality planning for teachers in the new millennium

"...powerful leaders of the past and present were dreamers and visionaries. They were people who looked beyond the confines of space and time to transcend the traditional boundaries of either their positions or their organizations" (Roueche, Baker & Rose, 1989:109).

Loewen (1997:7) compares strategic management to a compass that will direct an organisation through the stormy ocean of contemporary business management. This concept is also applicable on contemporary education management. Unprecedented change is taking place in schools all over the world and also in South Africa. Schools are increasingly being managed like businesses. Without effective strategic planning principals will be involved in crisis management. This article will explore the concept of strategic quality planning. Strategic quality planning, which reflects the principles of Total Quality Management, is a relatively new concept in education management In this article it is also indicated that it becomes difficult and frustrating for educational managers and leaders to accurately plan for a school in an environment that is changing rapidly, therefore the term strategic thinking is preferred.

The problem

A key task of the contemporary school is to stay ahead of change. The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark stresses that " the future ain't what it used to be!" (Weindling, 1997:218). Education in South Africa is currently undergoing dramatic change. The managerial tasks of education managers have also changed significantly. Unprecedented pressure is currently being exerted on teaching institutions as a result of new technology, changes in teaching methods and limited resources. According to Erasmus and Van der Westhuizen (1996:197), both local and international competition has put too much pressure on organisations in general. Lishani (1998:3) averred that devolution of education has become a highly competitive industry, since higher enrolment implies more funds for schools, and this attracts more learners. Universally, schools are increasingly being managed like businesses. For this reason aspects such as marketing, cost-effectiveness, and the needs of the client should receive attention. According to Weindling (1997:219) strategic planning "is a means for establishing and maintaining a sense of direction when the future has become more and more difficult to predict". The question that immediately presents itself is: What role can strategic planning play in the radical educational changes that have already taken place and in those that can be envisaged for South African schools? According to Jones (1987:62) "Without having learnt the skills of strategic management and operational planning, heads are liable to find themselves involved in nothing but crisis-management."

Schools have recently also started to shift the emphasis of their orientation. They are no longer only product-oriented, but client-oriented, or both product and client-- oriented. The role of the school principal has changed overnight to that of manager and business administrator. Education managers have to find new ways of increasing productivity in their organisations. Obviously, this places tremendous pressure on principals. Many principals have already become proficient in dealing with the most urgent of problems, such as the loss of personnel, affirmative action and redeployment of personnel. More effective and comprehensive ways of managing schools should therefore be found. According to Mawditt (1998:1) only teachers who have learnt to anticipate the future will be able to benefit from change, instead of being overwhelmed by it. This is also applicable to school principals. In order to meet all these demands, some of the basic conceptions about teaching institutions should be changed.

According to Weindling (1997:219) strategic planning is a technique which assists leaders and managers in getting direction when the future is getting unpredictable and turbulent. It is a way of continuously keeping the organization on course, by making adjustments as internal and external contexts change (Weindling, 1997:219). The mission of the organization is a written document in which the vision and aim of the organization for the following three to five years are indicated.

There is much uncertainty regarding strategic planning. At present there is no consensus among either scholars or practitioners of educational management and other relevant disciplines such, as business management (Smit & Breebaart, 1998:120-- 137), about the models for, and approaches to strategic planning. A new paradigm shift came to the fore, namely Total Quality Management (or TQM), which is a prominent school of thinking that originated in the last decade in Britain, Europe and the USA. According to TQM, quality should be managed actively and aggressively at teaching institutions. There is no neat definition of TQM. It is a way of thinking that shifts the emphasis away from the usual traditional, conservative approaches, to creative and innovative, interesting, exciting approaches, and which focuses on excellence in organizations, that means, in the instance of the school, quality education. This implies a new way of looking at education management which involves inter alla strategic planning..

Quality planning is essential to the implementation of quality. For the sake of clarity we have to examine two concepts, namely strategic planning and strategic quality planning According to Van der Watt (1997:45) the purpose of strategic planning is to determine the mission, vision, guidelines and deployment infrastructure of an organisation, which will encourage all employees to focus on or move in a common direction. Objectives, strategies and actions will be on a three to five-year time scale.Van der Watt (1997:47) defines strategic quality planning as follows: It involves those forces in an institution's strategy that will reflect, in conjunction with the external environmental factors, the impact on client needs (internal and external), as well as on quality-related organisational ability. Furthermore, it reflects the TQM philosophy and principles, with a view to bringing about institutional improvement.

Why is it necessary for strategic quality planning to take place within an organisation (school)? Loewen (1997:24) provides the following reasons:

* To control the future of the organisation;

* To focus the personnel;

* To develop leadership skills within an organisation;

* To improve communication; and

* To focus on the client and to improve service.

Regarding the above-mentioned approaches, it should be noted that it is no longer the duty of top management to manage the entire strategic planning process. The teacher now also has a duty and responsibility in this connection, and is an active participant in this entire process. Teachers are considered to be co-responsible in this process, currently it is done bottom-up..

Teachers should be informed of how strategic quality planning works, and they have to realise that the client (for instance the pupil, the parent, the university or the employer) is central in the entire planning process. When the client is not identified correctly, "...we produce something for ourselves which may not meet the demands of real customers" (Stott and Parr, 1991:6).

As the result of rapidly changing educational circumstances, it is possible that teachers do not see the necessity for strategic planning. However, it is possible to structure planning in such a way that it is responsive to change. Scally (in Davies, Ellison, Osborne and West-Burnham 1990:41) stresses the fact that it is easy to plan the immediate future of an individual, but the further one to change moves from one's own needs as well as into the future, the more difficult the planning becomes.It is difficult and frustrating for education managers to accurately plan for schools in an environment that is changing rapidly. Educational managers (like professor Harry Gray from Lancaster in a personal interview August 12, 1999) and experts on strategic planning in the Business sector (like Loewen, in a personal interview on March 17, 1998) are unanimous that it is not possible to plan the future in detail. Furthermore, Henry Mintzberg in his book The fall and rise of strategic planning (1994:1) says that what most people regard as strategic planning is actually programming. In this regard one should rather talk about strategic thinking or reflection.

Loewen (1997: 56) distinguishes between strategic planning and strategic thinking:

Strategic planning

* Only top management

* Structured planning

* Structured sessions according to agenda

* Correct answers and subject to top management's opinions

* Specific steps

* Control takes place by means of normative measuring

* Formal

Authors like Thody (1991:21-36), Murgatroyd (1991:7-19) and Smetherham (1991:3-6) link up with the above-mentioned argument. Thody's article deals with "reflective planning". Smetherham and Murgatroyd discuss the connection between strategic planning and the quality aspect of organisational development.

Conclusion

The following quotation of Senge (1996: 45) summarizes the role of the educational leader regarding strategic quality thinking in a new millenium: "we are becoming to believe that leaders are those people who 'walk ahead', people who are genuinely committed to deep change in themselves and in their organizations. They lead through developing new skills, capabilities, and understandings. And they come from many places in the organization." This is also true for educational in South Africa. However, with regard to strategic quality planning, detailed discussion of the above will have to await policy decisions to this end..

Strategic thinking

* The entire personnel

* Continious planning

* Not structured, theme based

* No immediate answers * Creative - ad hoc

* Innovative measuring linked to client satisfaction

* Chaotic, informal

References

Bienayme, A. 1989. Does company strategy have any lessons for educational planning? Prospects 19 (2); 243 55.

Bush, T & West-Burnham, J. 1994. The principles of educational management. Harlow: Longman.

Davies, B, Ellison, L, Osborne, A & West-- Burnham, J. 1990. Education management for the 1990's. Harlow: Longman.

Erasmus, M & Van der Westhuizen, PC. 1996. Organisation development and the quality of working life in schools, in schools as organisations, edited by PC van der Westhuizen. Pretoria: Van Schaik:197-239

Fidler, B, Bowles, G. & Hart, G. 1991. Effective local management of schools. Essex: Longman.

Fidler,B. 1996. Strategic planning for school improvement. London: Pitman.

Gray, H. 1999. Personal interview on August 12, 1999.

Hesselbein, F., Goldsmith, M. & Beckhard (eds) 1996. The leader of the future. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Jones, A. 1987. Leadership for tomorrow's schools. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

DR CH VAN DER LINDE

Department of Educational Sciences Rand Afrikaans University AUCKLANDPARK The Republic of South Africa

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