A Note on State Institute of Educational Management and
Training (SIEMAT)
By Dr. N.V. Varghese,
paper presented in
a Seminar on State, School and Community – Role of
Educational Management and Training in a Changing
Perspective held at SIEMAT Bihar, Patna, March 20-21, 1999
and Edited by Dr. Sudhansu Bhusan, Additional Director,
SIEMAT Bihar, Patna.
1.
Why SIEMAT?
Decentralization of educational
planning and management is a major concern in
India.
Translation of the idea of decentralisation into an
operational practice requires creation of necessary
organisational arrangements to make the practice
administratively feasible and professionally supportive.
The need for developing organisational arrangements to
facilitate educational planning in a decentralised framework
was recognised for a long time in India. However, the
efforts to create such organisational arrangements were not
very successful. Planning competencies are almost
non-existent at local levels and now it is recognised as one
of the major constraints in translating the idea of
decentralised planning into an operational practice.
Development of local capacity in planning and management of
education requires state level institutions to provide
professional guidance and support. SIEMAT can be one of the organisational
arrangements to help professionalising educational planning
and management activities at the state, district and
sub-district levels.
Various efforts were made in
the past to create such an institutional structure at the
state level. When the State Institutes of Education were
established in the 1960s, there was an expectation that a
wing specifically focusing on educational planning and
management will be created. In the 1980s as a follow-up to
the National Policy on Education, there was an effort to
create State Institute of Educational Planning and
Administration (SIEPA) at the state level. However, these
efforts did not materialise. Interestingly, when DIETs came
into existence in the late 1980s, a department/branch of
educational planning and management was created and hence,
an arrangement at the district level became a reality.
In the 1990s the efforts
towards decentralised planning in education, keeping
district as a unit for planning, took a more concrete shape.
With the initiation of large scale externally funded
educational projects in primary education, the demand for
local level capacity to prepare district plans in education
increased. This necessitated developing professional
competency in educational planning at the local level which
needed support from institutions at the state level. This
explains the immediate context for setting up of state level
institutions like SIEMAT.
2.
Existing Arrangements
Over the past four years
efforts are being made by many state governments, especially
those State Governments where externally funded primary
education projects are in progress, to create organisational
arrangement for educational planning and management at the
state level. Based on the experience of setting-up of such
organisational arrangements, different possibilities have
emerged now. These possibilities are :
i) SIEMAT as a separate institute at the state
level;
ii) SIEMAT as a department in the State
Council of Educational
Research and Training (SCERT);
iii) SIEMAT as
a part of the DPEP state project office;
iv) SIEMAT as a cell
working under the Directorate of School Education;
and
v) SIEMAT as a
part of the State Institute of Public Administration.
All of the above arrangements except (v) are
now in operation in many states.
3.
Why a Separate Institute?
NIEPA has been advocating
setting-up of SIEMAT as a separate institute. This is more
so in states which are big and where the number of
educational administrators to be trained are large. The need
for a separate institution stems from various factors.
Firstly, educational planning
and management is a less developed area of specialization in
India. There are only very few universities or institutions
imparting education and training in the area of educational
planning and management. On the other hand, there are many
departments and institutions in the country which impart
education and training for improving pedagogical skills of
educational functionaries (teachers). It may be a better
idea to have state level arrangement as a separate institute
where the concerns can be centered around developing
planning and management competencies of educational
functionaries.
Secondly, with the progress in
our efforts towards decentralisation of educational planning
and management, the number of functionaries involved in the
planning process has increased. They require professional
support and academic orientation to formulate plans and to
develop implementation designs. This in itself is a massive
effort, especially in states which are large in size.
Moreover, planning process has expanded from the district to
the sub-district levels. Needless to add, the demand for
professional support is also directly related to such
expanding base of planning requirements at the local levels.
Therefore, only a separate institute with full fledged
faculty and departments will be able to provide regular
support to planning activities.
Thirdly, an institutional
arrangement relating to educational planning and management
needs to take into account all levels of education. It may
not be desirable and possible to develop separate
institutions for various levels of education. Therefore,
while visualising an institute, one may have to keep a
long-term development of the educational system of the state
in mind rather than the short-term demands put by any
particular sector of education. The SCERT by definition
deals with school level education. If SIEMAT becomes a part
or department of SCERT, then there is a possibility that it
may deal only with school level education. This perhaps may
not be a desirable arrangement in the long run.
Fourthly, funding and support
needed to develop such organisational arrangements are now
forthcoming. For example, the DPEP provides a chance to
setup SIEMAT as a separate institution. This opportunity may
be utilised to realise the long-term objective of the state.
It may happen that the institute may focus its attention in
the initial stages towards planning of elementary levels of
education. Even otherwise, since universalisation of
elementary education is Constitutional commitment and a
fundamental right in India, any institute dealing with the
planning and management aspects of education needs to
necessarily focus its attention on the compulsory levels of
education However, this immediate requirement need not be
the only basis to setup an Institute. Therefore, even when
funds from the DPEP are available and even when many of the
Institute's activities in the short-run may be related to
primary levels of education, it is very necessary and
important to keep the vision and mission of the institute
focused on all levels of education.
Fifthly, "the immediate demand for setting up such an
Institute, as mentioned above, comes from the DPEP; the
funding support, too is provided by the DPEP. However, it
may not be a desirable proposition to setup the institute
strictly within the framework of the DPEP. This is very
important because DPEP is envisaged in a "project mode". An
institute to undertake research and impart training in
educational planning and administration may not be viewed in
a project mode. Such an institutional framework needs to be
continued even after the project period and therefore, the
commitment of the state governments to continue with these
institutional arrangements even when the now available
external funding support dries away is very important. From
this point of view also, it may not be a desirable idea to
have the institute as part of the DPEP state project office.
Sixthly, SIEMAT is an academic
institution and any academic institution requires an element
of autonomy in its operation to develop it into a
professional institution. Keeping this institute as part of
the Directorate of Education may imply that it becomes a
part of the administrative arrangement rather than an
academic support system. Unless sufficient autonomy is given
to these units from the very beginning, there is a
possibility that the very purpose of setting up of these
institutions may be lost.
There are strong grounds for
setting up SIEMAT as a separate institute. However, it is left to the state
governments to decide on the nature of organisational
arrangements to be created at the state level. The argument
is only confined to the fact that there is a need to have
some organisational arrangement at the state level to
undertake the responsibilities of capacity development in
the area of educational planning and management on a
sustained basis and the DPEP provides a good opportunity to
realise this objective.
4.
On Structure and Functions of the Institute
The organisational structure of
the SIEMAT may be
related to its expected role. The specific requirements may
vary from state to state. Therefore, it may be a better idea
not to have a blueprint of the institute developed at the
central level. Each state government may develop proposals
to setup the institution and evolve organisational
structures, taking into consideration the specific
requirements of the state.
Some of the expected functions
of the institute may be as follows
:
i)
Support to policy planning at the state level. This
can be facilitated through providing an advisory supportive
role to the state governments through conducting research in
areas of concern for policy making and implementation at the
state level and organizing orientation programmes for senior
level educational administrators at the state level. For
example, issues like evolving norms for setting-up of
educational institutions, norms for providing
infrastructural facilities in educational institutions,
norms regarding recruitment and posting of teachers, norms
regarding performance of educational institutions etc. may
become an area of concern of the Institute.
ii) The institute may conduct research
studies on various aspects including evaluation research of
various programmes initiated by the State government to
assess the relative effectiveness of various schemes,
including the incentive schemes.
iii) Organising training programmes,
especially for educational functionaries at the district and
sub-district levels on various aspects related to
educational planning and management and organising seminars
on areas of concern.
iv) Developing local level capacities for
undertaking school mapping exercises, micro-planning
activities and facilitating participatory process of
educational planning and management in association with
lower level administrative and academic bodies.
v)
Improving competencies of the supervisory staff to
improve the efficiency of the educational institutions and
the system as a whole.
vi) Providing support in handling of data
pertaining to various indicators of the educational
development on which performance of districts or schools can
be assessed.
vii) Developing competencies for costing of
educational plans and mobilization and utilization of
resources including preparation of budgets.
viii) Project planning and implementation including
monitoring and evaluation of projects.
ix) Providing professional guidance to sub-state
level institutions dealing with educational planning and
management.
In other words, the institute
may be playing an advisory and policy support role at the
state level, conducting direct training programmes for
educational functionaries, indirect training of many of the
educational functionaries and conducting research in various
aspects related to educational policy and programmes.
The organisational structure to
be developed for an institute like SIEMAT may reflect some
of these concerns. Therefore, it is not desirable to suggest
the type of departments that institute should have. One of
the first SIEMATs established in Uttar Pradesh at Allahbad
has five departments. These departments are : (i) Department
of Policy and Planning; (ii) Department of Management; (iii)
Department of Educational Finance; (iv) Department of
Research, Evaluation and, (v) Department of Educational
Management and Information System. It is important that the
state governments evolve the necessary structure depending
on their requirements rather than following any given
structure for any state.
5.
Who can be the Faculty Members?
In any organisation, the
orientation of the faculty members will decide the nature of
activities that can be effectively undertaken. It is equally
important that the specialisation of the faculty members
must match the concerns of the institution. It needs to be
emphasised that people with specialization in educational
planning and management are rarely available. Therefore,
these institutes may not be in a position to recruit people
who are adequately trained and experienced in the area of
educational planning. However, faculty development
programmes and in-house capacity building activities can be
initiated in a sustained fashion provided that faculty
members are permanent. This is an important dimension of
developing an institute. However, the experiences of the
existing institutions do not always help facilitating the
faculty development programmes for various reasons:
Firstly, in some states the
faculty members are drawn from the administrative cadre on a
deputation basis who can be called back at any time. These
people are educational administrators who may prefer work
related to educational administration to academic
activities. Moreover, even when capacity is built in
individuals it is seldom available in the institute once
they return to the parent department. Therefore, the
institute may frequently face the problem of not having
competent staff in some of the existing academics. In these
cases the faculty members of SIEMAT identify themselves with the
administrative cadres and many of them are eager to go back
to the main-stream
administration than remaining in the institute.
Secondly, in certain situations
the faculty members are recruited for short durations, not
necessarily from the administration. They are brought on
deputation from other institutions or universities and are
available only for a limited period. Even in this case, although they are not
called back immediately, they are not in a position to
continue in the institute for a long time. Therefore,
faculty development programmes are adversely affected.
It may be desirable for these
institutions to have a separate cadre of faculty which will
eventually be specialised in the area of educational
planning and administration. A distinction needs to be made
between issues related to educational planning and
management and issues related to pedagogical aspects of
education. All the states have State Council for Educational
Research and Training (SCERT) which focuses on pedagogical
improvement. SIEMATs
are not expected to focus on pedagogical issues.
Therefore, pedagogical experts may not be recruited as
faculty members in SIEMATs. A more desirable qualification
for SIEMAT faculty members may be post-graduates and Doctor
level educated people in the area of social sciences with
research or working experience in the field of education.
This will help them see educational planning from a broader
perspective in its inter-relatedness with other sectors of
development. Since, specialists in educational planning and
management are not readily available, it is important to
emphasise the orientation and development of the faculty
members once they are recruited and posted in SIEMATs.
6.
Focus on Staff Development
The major activity of the
Institute will be research and training, apart from policy
support which the institute may be providing to decision
makers at different levels. However, even this advisory role
requires a strong research back-up. Therefore, in the
ultimate analysis, research and training become major areas
of activity of the institute.
The capacity building in the
Institute requires building capacities to undertake training
activities and to initiate research studies. There is a
close link between research and training which needs to be
appreciated in these institutions. The trainees are
educational practitioners and the faculty members need not
be very familiar with the practice of educational
administration. Therefore, it is very important to see that
the faculty members understand educational administration
from a more objective point of view so that they are in a
position to handle quality training programmes to improve
the efficiency of educational planners and administrators.
For this purpose, research becomes a very necessary and
important function of the institute. Action research,
field-based studies, case studies, evaluation studies and
diagnostic studies to understand the functioning of the
system, need to be built into the regular activities of the
Institute.
Capacity building for research
activities cannot be organised through short- duration
training programmes, although it is possible to train
faculty members in a particular research methodology within
a short duration. Therefore, based on the theme identified
for research, one may have to have close academic
interactions with experts in the selected areas working in
universities and other research institutions. This may
create an initial environment conducive to research
activities in SIEMAT. Needless to add, the major form of
capacity building in research is learning-by-doing. This can
be facilitated only when the institute initiates research
studies.
The link between research and
training is provided through developing training materials.
The training material development should be seen as a
serious activity in the SIEMAT, if quality of training
programmes is to be improved. The training materials to be
developed need to have a research base. Therefore, while
developing training materials adequate care need to be taken
to ensure that they help in improving professional
competencies of the prospective trainees. The training
programmes provide an opportunity to try out the training
materials before they are finalised as training modules. In
this sense, training becomes a learning experience for the
faculty members to focus on issues of concern for the
educational planners and administrators.
Given the increasing demand,
the institute may be forced to organise training programmes
during the initial stage itself. Therefore, training
programmes may also have to be started along with research
activities. In the absence of materials developed, the
institute, in the initial stages may rely on training
materials developed by other institutions. However, reliance
on externally produced training materials may have to be
reduced in the long-run. While it is possible to take help
from national level institutions, it is more important to
develop institutional capacity for these activities.
Most of the training programmes
to be organised by the faculty members may be in the area of
educational planning and management and therefore, they need
to be oriented to educational planning and management issues
in the initial stage itself. National institutions like
NIEPA can be of help in providing support for faculty
development. The NIEPA will be happy to orient the newly
recruited faculty members through attachment programmes. The
SIEMAT may make
use of such avenues to develop competency of the faculty
members in educational planning and management.
An equally important aspect of
capacity development for the faculty members is development
of good library and documentation centre in the institute.
Since the area of educational planning and management is not
yet well developed, it is very difficult to find useful
books at the local level. Therefore, it is important that
books in the selected areas are identified, purchased and
made available to the faculty members.
Another opportunity is to
develop working arrangements with the local level research
institutions and universities which are experts in the
selected or related areas. Fortunately, India has wide
network of institutions and universities from where experts
may be drawn into the field of education. Such close
interaction with universities and research institutions will
provide an encouraging research environment in SIEMATs.