साथी त हृदयबाट मस्तिष्कतिर बसाई सरेछ अचेल,
बारम्बार याद आइरहेछ अचेल,
बिर्सिन खोज्दा झन याद आइरहेछ अचेल,
आँखामा राख्दा नबिझाउने उ,
हृदयबाट मस्तिष्कतिर बसाई सरेछ!
उसले गार्हो भो, सार्हो भो भन्दा यो मन दुख्थ्यो,
उसले हार्दा, नसकेर कुनै काम पर सार्दा,
म आफै लडे जस्तो हुन्थ्यो,
म आफै सडे जस्तो हुन्थ्यो,
अनि हात धाप मार्दै भन्थे मैले
"हरेस खान हुन्न,
बिग्रेको काम न हो, हामी हो र?"
साथी,
मेरो भन्ने उहीँ थ्यो,
उसको भन्ने मै थें, तर के भो अचेल?
साथी डेरा सरेछ अचेल,
हृदयबाट मस्तिष्कतिर बस्छ अचेल!
मौषम बदलिएको छ आजकल,
न गर्मी छ, न जाडो,
परिवेश पल्लवित छ,
चराचुरुङ्गिको चुरीफुरी बढ्दो छ,
चहलपहल बेग्लै छ ,
पारदर्शी पहिरनमा सजिएर हिड्नेहरु,
सबैको शान छ शहरमा,
के साँच्चै नयाँ बर्ष आएको हो र?
'यस्ता बर्ष कति आए, कति गए'
भन्नेहरुपनि छन् यहाँ,
'यो बर्षपनि दिनहरु तप्प तप्प चुहिएर,
शीतका थोपा जस्तै,
थाहै नपाई सकिएछन् ' भन्नेहरुपनि छन् यहाँ,
तर
पोखिएका दिनहरु संगालेर भरिएको अनुभवको जिन्दगी देखाइदिने मन छ,
त्यही भरिएको अनुभवले नयाँ बर्षका हरेक दिन रङ्गाउने मन छ !
मेरो यात्रा क्षितिजतिर लम्किदैं छ,
अब म मेरो जिन्दगीबाट जुन पोखिएर खेर गएको कुरा गर्दिन,
सुन सकिएर फलाम मात्र रहेको गुनासो गर्दिन,
अब मलाई चराले जस्तो आफ्नै शरीर ठुँगेर,
आफ्नै बिगतको घाउ कोट्याएर,
विगतमै हराउन मन छैन,
बरु तिनै चोटहरुलाई सिढि बनाएर,
सफलताको शिखर चढ्नु छ ।
अब म गन्तब्य बिर्सेर बाटोमा हराएको,
अलपत्र यात्रु पनि त होइन,
दौडदै गर्दा बाटोमा सुतेको खरायो पनि त होइन,
ज्ञान र अनुभवको आगोमा हाम फाल्दै गर्दा,
कतै सुस्ताएँ जस्तो, कतै अस्ताएजस्तो देखिएँ हुँला,
तर अडिग, अचल मेरो सपना पूरा गर्न,
आइसक्यो त नयाँ बर्ष !
They say I must assess my learners,
How do I know what my learners have learned!
How can I measure them?
Neither the measuring tape I have nor a scale,
But they say I must measure learning!
They say they have developed the parameter,
But, how apt are they?
Who told them learning can be measured?
Can knowledge be measured?
Who am I to assess you and grade you?
बाच्नका लागि लड्दा लड्दै,
एक पेट पाल्नकालागि ,
एक मुठी साहस बोकेर,
जीवन नै बन्धक राखेर,
बर्षौदेखि हिडिरहेको
म एक जिउदो सहिद !
A teacher like a preacher,
Keeps on speaking,
Facing a laptop,
Looking lifeless screen,
Believes, all are there,
On her one way trafficking Lectures!
Who knows?
She is teaching,
Shouting alone in the room!
Has she gone crazy?
She has just learnt to use it!
Has heard Virtual is more effective,
But how?
No ideas!
Wants interaction among the learners!
Shout, 'can you listen to me’?
No sound,
Realizes she was speaking being disconnected!
Uff!
Such incidents occurred again and again!
Sometimes students made her fool,
Other time Technology made her fool,
But she never gave up!
Nowadays,
She knows well, how to go with tools!
Shows well, how to treat the fools!
Goes well, being cool!
Thanks Corona,
For making her more noble,
For making her more able,
By pushing her into the furnace,
To form and reform in the furnishing Fire,
Now, let her go ahead,
With her efficiency and efficacy!
Rowntree (1977) makes the comment
about the assessment system that ‘If we wish to discover the truth about an
educational system, we just look into its assessment procedures.’ This
statement highlights the importance of assessment in learning. Along with the
virtual mode of education, online assessment has become more essential. Online
assessment has become an integral part of pedagogy in the ICT blended education
system.
It is an enormous challenge to
carry out assessments, making them more effective and reliable, but online
assessment makes them easy. Nowadays, we adopt participatory assessment that
refers to the active participation of the students in the assessment process
(Partti, Westerland, & Lebler, 2015). In this regard, ICT tools can be the best tools to achieve
the objectives of participatory
assessment. Likewise, Lebler (2008)
mentions that there are three functions of students’ assessment: assessment of
learning (to examine the students’ achievement to ensure learning outcomes);
assessment for learning (to provide feedback and direction for future
activities); assessment as learning (to produce learning by involving students
actively in the assessment process). Agreeing with Lebler (2008),we can say
that assessment can be more effective when we use ICT tools. It is believed
that students change their learning behaviors according to what they think the
teacher assesses and learn in ways that will produce the best results for the
type of assessment being used. Therefore, how to make online assessment more
effective and reliable is more important.
Draves (2000) continues to state
that students will learn more, better, and faster than what they do in today's
traditional classroom because of having the foremost authorities at their
fingertips and having more personal attention, interaction, and individual
feedback from the teacher. Online assessment provides the opportunity to
improve the result as it offers a variety of tools to assess the learning
outcomes. Online assessment can be used as a formative test during the learning
process. It can enhance the quality of learners by providing instant feedback.
We can use online assessment of ‘in
learning, for learning and as learning’ as
Lebler (2008) mentions.
While discussing the advantages of
online assessment, it offers a variety of assessment designs. The facilitator
can assess many learning outcomes one at a time. Instant feedback and instant
results may help the learners to learn more. Likewise, it tends to be more
accurate and easier to conduct to all the students at once. Efficient
submission, marking, moderation helps motivate the learners for better
performance.
Assessment is a process of
continuous measurement of students' learning outcomes. There are two types of
assessment of students' learning; formative and summative. Summative
assessment, in general, is used for the upgrading of students to higher level
through the closed and structured written test at the end of semester or year.
In reality, this is not a real measurement of the capabilities of students at
different levels. Whereas, formative assessment has been taken as the means of
learning in which all students are assessed during their learning journey
continuously and they are provided feedback immediately. Such assessments
encourage students to go further ahead with timely correction on their
weaknesses and drawbacks. Therefore, in overview, assessment can be concluded
as a method used to improve the quality of education as it enhances in lifelong
learning skills and promotes performance in various educational contexts (Putch
et., al, 2010). So, assessment is an integral part of students’ learning that
helps them to grow more in future with encouragement and motivation.
Online
assessment is a burning topic of discussion that is profoundly used all over
the world. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, its utility, effectiveness, and strength
have become more prominent in teaching-learning activities. Although the online
assessment was adopted practically only in higher studies earlier now, it has
become an unavoidable part of assessment in school’s education as well. Hence,
the integration of technology with assessment modality is essential for all of
us. Schools and colleges are using different platforms for online assessment of
students both through synchronous and asynchronous mode of online assessments.
Nevertheless, to mean it productive, teachers' preparedness, infrastructure,
digital tools and strong connectivity are also essential for the better online
formative assessment of students.
Here are
some best tools which are practiced in online assessment on students.
Google form: It is the simplest and easiest way to create
and share formative assessment quizzes, multiple choice questions and even
short answer questions through it for the assessment of students.
Socrative: It is the super engaging online platform that
allows teachers to create pools and gamified quizzes to assess students’
progress with real time results visible on screen.
Kahoot: It is the free game-based learning platform, which
is an excellent way to engage learners of any age with a free basic plan that
provides live and asynchronous individuals and access to the ready to use
kahoot library as well.
Flipgrid: It is a free, powerful and simple learning tool
that allows teachers to initiate class discussion by posting videos. Through
this medium, learners can also create and post their responsive videos and
texts.
Edpuzzle: It is the video-based learning and assessment
platform that helps educators turn one-way videos into interactive formative
assessment. We can upload video from youtube, TED or our own computer and then
can add questions, links etc. to create meaningful assessment. Pear deck: It is
an add-on for google slides that lets teachers quickly create the formative
assessment templates by turning ordinary slideshow into an interactive quiz.
Besides
these all, there are other ICT based tools to use for online assessments of
students via synchronous and asynchronous mode. Zoom, Microsoft Team, Google
meet are also the widely used platforms for synchronous teaching and learning
activities. These platforms can also be used to carry out some simple and
easier assessments. In addition, Mentimeter, Jamboard, Literbley, etc. are also
widely used apps and ICT tools for assessing the students. But a matter of fact
that is to be considered seriously while using these platforms is that although
these are the best, reliable and easier ICT tools, and techniques for the
assessment of students, there might be academic dishonesty, cheating, etc.
there (Van, n.d.). But, the teachers’ pro-activeness, vigilance, and creative
engagement, along with proper planning of students’ motivation, can come instrumental
in reducing the prospective negative flaws of it.
To sum up, in
the age of ICT blended education, online assessment has a significance role in
improving the learning experience of a student. Online assessment is an
integral part of ICT blended education. Online assessment makes teaching and
learning activities and assessment process more accurate, more reliable and
more effective. It even motivates the learners to perform better as it gives
instant result, feedback and reliable grade. As online assessment provides the
opportunity to measure many skills of a learner in different forms through
various tools, it will certainly wins the heart of every teacher and will
become the inseparable part of innovative pedagogy in near future.
References
Buchanan, T.
(2002). Online assessment: Desirable or dangerous? Professional Psychology:
Research and Practice, 33(2), 148–154.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.33.2.148
Draves, W. A.
(2000). Teaching Online. River Falls, Wisconsin: LERN Books.
Partti, H.,
Westerland, H., & Lebler, D. (2015). Participatory assessment and the
construction of professional identity in folk and popular music programs in
Finnish and Australian music universities. International Journal of Music
Education 33 (4), 476-490.
Puteh, S. N.,
Nasri, N., Roslan, S. N., Sekuan, M. L., & Bakar, K. A. (2010). Teachers’
perception on alternative assessment. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences,
7(C), 37 – 42.
Rowntree, D.
(1977). Assessing students: How shall we know them? London, UK: Harper &
Row
Van, B. G.
(n.d.). How cheating helps drive better instruction. https://www.plagiarized.com/vanb.shtml
This paper reviews provision of free
education policy in Nepal and shows how the paradox is created in the practice.
Nowadays, it is widely accepted that school education is a public good and the
government must bear the responsibilities of providing free school education to
its citizen. The government of Nepal also has already expressed its commitment
to free school education to all citizens and has documented this right as a
fundamental right in the constitution. But, at the same time, it follows the dual
education policy of public education system and private education allowing
charging the fee to the students.. In this context, this paper shows the
present education policy documented in constitution and different Rules and
regulations of Nepal Government and attempts to demonstrate how they contradict
in practice and the mission of ‘free school education to all’ as a right is
questioned by the government in practice itself.
(Key words: public good, education,
education policy, private education, public education)
Two years ago, I was working as a
Principal in a school of Kathmandu as a principal. I had to hire an office
Assistant for the school. Out of some candidates, with certain criteria, I
selected a lady for the post. She was from poor economy background and inquired
me about the rules of the school whether the school teaches her children at
free of cost. As per the rules, I informed her that school bears 50% cost of
her children if they are enrolled over there. At the moment, she calculated her
salary, her husband’s income and decided to enroll their two children in class
V and VII.
Everything went
smoothly that year. Her children were doing wonderful result. Next year,
unfortunately, she could not continue the job at our school. She and her
husband came to school and requested me to continue same facility about their
children as they could not afford more fees. But the scenario of the school was
already changed. School was promoted to ‘A’ Level and has increased lots of
facilities along with fee. As per the rules of the school, I said to them ‘ I
cannot do anything regarding fees’ They were enjoying the previous facilities
because of their mother who was working at the school. Finally, they decided to
take the children out of the school reluctantly to admit them in governmental
school despite their strong desire to teach in private school where they had
more trust for quality education.
A question
triggered my mind, with a sense of guilty. Had the government taken the
responsibility of free education, the parents would not have taken those
children from the private school against their desires. The Principal, a person,
taking a role of providing education, was helplessly sending children out of
school simply because their parents could not afford the fee. It was the time
when our nation had just promulgated the constitution with the commitment of
free education up to the secondary level from the state assuring the ‘Every
citizen shall have the right of access to basic education (Article 31, Constitution
of Nepal).
Then onwards, I
started pondering over the issues that ‘can education be provided at free of
cost to all the children?’ I came to know that ‘Everyone has the right to
education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental
stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory (Article 26, Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). I
further enquired about the issues and came to know that the government of Nepal
has already shown its commitment through different documents about the free
school education to all.
It is the paradox that, ‘Right to
education’ has been accepted as a fundamental human right and every child
deserves it but the story of free education is just like a myth in Nepal due to
the dual policy of the government. On the one hand it is promoting private schools
allowing them charging the fee and on the other hand, has announced free
education to all. At this juncture, Nepal’s commitment to universal schooling,
enshrined in its constitution, more as political rhetoric than policy reality
(Carney, 2003). He means to say that in policy level, the government announced
education free to all just to appeal the people politically. In the
documentation it has been accepted as a fundamental right but in practice, it
has become just a political agenda far from people’s access. The state has
shown its commitment in the international forums and documents but it is not
found in the real ground. It has become merely political slogan to appeal the
people. It is not materialized by everyone.
The constitution of
Nepal 2072, ensures the free education
upto the secondary level. It has been accepted as a state responsibility. in
other word, it recognizes school education of every citizen as a public
good.The article 31 of the constitution mentions the ‘Right to Education’ as:
Right
relating to education: (1) Every citizen
shall have the right of access to basic education.
(2)
Every citizen shall have the right to get compulsory and free education up to
the basic level and free education up to the secondary level from the State.
(3)
The citizens with disabilities and the economically indigent citizens shall
have the right to get free higher education in accordance with law.
(4)
The visually impaired citizens shall have the right to get free education
through brail script and the citizens with hearing or speaking impairment, to
get free education through sign language, in accordance with law.
(5)
Every Nepalese community residing in Nepal shall have the right to get
education in its mother tongue and, for that purpose, to open and operate
schools and educational institutes, in accordance with law.
Likewise the article 39 of the
constitution assures the Right of the children as ‘Every child shall have the
right to education, health, maintenance, proper care, sports, entertainment and
overall personality development from the families and the State. Here it is to
be marked that education of the child is the fundamental right guaranteed by
the state.
Similarly, under the Directive Principles and Policies of education in the
constitution ,the article 51 (H-2 and
3) mentions private sector investment made in education service oriented
by regulating and managing such investment, while enhancing the State's
investment in the education sector, to make higher education easy, qualitative
and accessible, and free gradually.
The Constitution, the fundamental law
of the nation, defines education as a fundamental right. In other words it
accepts education as a public good. Therefore, now the government of Nepal must
take it seriously and has to take the appropriate steps to fulfill the declared
‘Right to education.
Concept of Public good comes from the
economics. In economics, Anything fall under the public good when the good,
commodity or service is provided to someone and while consuming it, or using it, another person will not be deprived of it
at the same time. Such commodity or services can be provided publicly without
cost at the same time for all. Oxygen of the atmosphere and social security
falls under the public goods. In other words, Public Good refers the individual
consumption of good which does not make the good unavailable to others. It does
not prevent non-contributors from enjoying the good and if provided, the good
will be available to all.
Likewise, the Private
Good can be understood as opposite to public good, an excludable, allowing
owner to prevent those who have not paid for the good from enjoying its
benefits (Poloni, 2013). Likewise Bhatta
(2014) elaborates the idea of public good as an imagined and communal space in
which goods valued by society become collectively owned and shared through
respectful and open contestation and negotiation. He means to say that the
public good is used by all the people collectively and no one should be deprive
of consuming it at free of cost. In a nut shell, public good suggests those
goods which can be consumed by many people at the same time without paying its
cost and at the same time, consumption by one person does not deprive other
people from its consumption.
There is a hot debate over whether the
education is a private good or a public good. If education is regarded as a
public good, the state has to bear all the cost of education of the children.
The policy of paying and managing for the education may vary but the state
should shoulder the responsibility of school education in all forms. This
school of thought has been taking universal approval in the world.
Nowadays education
has been accepted as a fundamental human right. Every child has the right to
education without any hindrance. The governments have to guarantee this right
to every child assuring ‘availability, accessibility, acceptability and
adoptability’ (Tomasevsky, 2001) of the school education. No child or the parents should be forced to
pay for the school education as it is the fundamental right of the child to get
the education. Some scholars argue that a government policy of providing
universal and free education makes it a public good (Sen, 2000; as qtd. in
Menashy, 2009). When the government accepts education as a fundamental human
right and makes commitment of providing it at free of cost, it takes the form
of public good. The welfare states have to guarantee the right of its citizens
from ‘womb to tomb’. In this regard ‘school education is entirely
responsibility of the government’ (Koirala, 2015). When the state steps towards
welfare state, education must be its first and foremost responsibility.
The private schools
have been charging the fees to the students and children’s right to free
education is violated. The policy of the government regarding the private
school questions the very sensative spirit of the free education as a
fundamental human right. As argued by Acharya
(2007), education has traditionally been seen more as a development tool than a
right of an individual.
At the same time many studies and reports emphasize
the problem areas within the education sector as ‘inadequate access and low participation,
low retention of students at all levels, low levels of educational quality’ (Carney,
2003). It proves that schools are not easily accessible, and even if it is
available there are many questions about the quality education of the public
schools where the state has funded. It is not about whether the children are
sent to school but most importantly how qualitatively they have been injected
through education system.
On the other
hand, Some scholars argue that state withdrawal in favor of privatization’
with ‘market anchored conceptions of schooling’, and engineering and
legitimizing a departure from decades of the welfare state (Zajada, qtd. in
Sing, 2015). His concern is that when the state allows privitization and lets
the market decide the cost on the basis of competioton, it is the sheer example
of retreating from the concept of welfare state. In this point, state is
getting back from its primary responsibility of providing education by
transfering its responsibility to ‘market anchored conceptions of schooling’.
It means unless and untill, state alone bears the burden of educational cost,
and lets the market to decide the cost in the name of privitization, it can not
be called a welfare state. No welfare state can claim that education is free to
all.
The government,alone could not manage school education and introduced the
privitization policy to ensure education but unfortunately, it questioned the
very spirit of the government’s policy of education as a public good. The
concept of privitazation does not recognize the school education as a public
good rather seeks to make profit from it which is not bad initself. Therefore,
it is obvious that the state can colaaborate with private sectors to fulfil its
commitment. It’s obvious providing education needs expenses whether it is
managed by the government or the private sectors but the expenses have to be
born by the state. The state should not withdraw its hand from the
responsibility of the eduaction even though private sectors get involved there.
Talking
about the school system of Nepal, There are basically 2 types of schools:
Public and Institutional. The government bears the expenses in the public
school especially the salary of the teachers where as in institutional schools,
they can charge the tuition fees and extra fees to the students to run the
school. In case of public school also it is not completely free as students
have to pay the money for uniform, stationeries, exam fees, and in other
topics. The government has shown the commitment for the free education but at
the same time does not take all the responsibility of education. As a result,
Not only private schools but also, to some extent, public schools have charged
the fees to the students. Providing
salary to the teachers is not enough, Mathema (2007) argues that it is not
therefore uncommon for public schools to charge admission or examination fees
for the students in order to meet daily school needs. At the same time, the
studies have shown that it is not just the lack of physical, instructional, and
human resources public schools of Nepal suffer but even when resources are available, there is no teaching and
learning. Courses are not completed in time. Teacher absenteeism is high. Even
if the teachers are present in schools, teachers do not teach. As a result, “The
rural schools in Nepal basically serve the role of disqualifying rural young
people from roles in society and turning them into failures. (Stephen Mikesell,
as cited in Mathema 2007)
The private schools of Nepal have
contributed Less than 20% in total. The latest data shows that only 15.3%
students study in primary level, 16.2% in Lower Secondary level and 19.3 %
study in Secondary level (MOFA 2017). Looking upon the above data one might
argue that private schools cover only about 20 % of total students but what about other 80 %? How can we argue that government
has not paid for its peoples’ education?
The question has gravity on serface level. Obviously, almost 80% students
attend the governmental schools funded by the government. But the question is
not how many children attend the governmental school but have they been
provided quality standard education? The effectiveness of any school is
heavily influence by the quality of teaching, and the skills, motivation and
commitment of its teachers (UNESCO, 2008).
But this argument seems to far from the reality. Some scholars like ( Koirala, 2015) argues that the government is failure to offer quality education
to all children due to shortage of funds.
Education has been accepted as a key
asset to develop the nation. Unless and until people remain uneducated, the
prosperity of the nation also will be like a mirage. In this sense, every
nation, nowadays, attempt to address education as a primary source to develop
the nation. Therefore, they spend around 25% budget in education for quality
education and to ensure education to every citizen. While making policy of the
education, they focus on the adequacy, equity, efficiency use of the budget in
the education sector.
Obviously, many developing countries
like ours, suffer from funding in education. Despite the fact, they must
allocate maximum budget in education sector assuring quality education. The
state has to ensure adequacy of the budget, promote equity and perform
efficiently. (World Bank, 2012)
The above figure emphasizes how
the educational budget should be allocated. The education policy must ensure
adequate budget system so that no children should be deprived of any facility.
At the same time, education should be provided to all regardless of barriers.
In case of schools, they should not be concentrated only in urban area; rather
even in far remote area also it has to be ensured to all. There should not be
any discrimination on any basis. Unless and until, equity is maintained, we
cannot claim that education is provided to all. Likewise, Performing
efficiently demands result. Providing schools facility is not sufficient, how
they have been performing matters most. Therefore, the above figure tells that
the education has to be provided assuring adequacy, maintaining equity and
ensuring efficiency for which much more financial support needs. If we see the
education system of Nepal from these lenses, we will not be satisfied to say
that Nepal provides free quality education to all as a public good.
In a nutshell, every
child is entitled to education free of cost as an inalienable right, and access
to education should not be based on capacity to pay fees which often are
exorbitant (Singh ,2015). Nepal also has shown its commitment to free education
to every child as a fundamental human right but
due to the existance of private schools and government’s tendency to bear only the
salary of the teachers in public schools, the schools have been charging the
fees to the students. It is against the
concept of education as a public good.
Therfore, on the one hand, ‘Interventions are also
needed to improve the quality of teaching and learning in public schools’ (National
Review of S.D.G.2017). They have to be upgraded not only in term of physical
structures but also in quality. On the other hand, issues related with
privatization of education which deprives the education to be a public good,
has to be addressed by the government to accomplish the goal targeted in the
constitution. Private schools can have a supportive role in education for to
but the state has to ensure the education as a public good.
Acharya, Sushan. (2007). Social inclusion. Gender and equity in
education SWAps in South Asia. Kathmandu: UNICEF.
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This paper emphasizes the role of creativity in the decision
making process for the promotion of organization. The creativity of an
individual is a rational factor to decision making in an organization which contributes
the success of organization. Therefore, it
is essential to ensure creative environment in the organization promoting
creative freedom to support the overall decision making system. By following
different strategies, it is possible to create such environment from which the
organization can take benefit by utilizing the creativity of every person in
the organization. The paper defines decision making and creativity and attempts
to explore some strategies for making creative decisions ensuring the
participation of the individuals working in the organization.
Key Words:
Creative decision making; promotion of
organization; creative environment; motivation
Decision making plays the vital
role in every affair of organization. How to take a decision in a particular affair
is a big challenge to every organizational leader /manager in an organization. This
act of taking decision is regarded as a heart of management. Decision making can be defined as the
conscious process of making choices among alternatives with the intention of
moving toward some desired state of affair. (Mc Shaine & Mary Anne, 2010,
p.198) A manager continuously evolves in the decision making process while
setting goals, determining plans, and taking courses of action, formulating
strategies and policies, assigning jobs to subordinates, and evaluating their
performance. (Paudyal, Pradhan & Bhandari, 2013). Hence, all the managerial functions are
determined by the decision making, it is a bench mark of all operation of
activities.
In this regard, role of creativity
on how to take decision becomes more significant. Then, what is creativity? a
question arises. Simonton (2001) believes that creativity enables a person to
adjust to novel circumstances and to solve problems that unexpectedly arise.
Obviously, such a capacity is often very valuable in everyday life. If so,
creativity is the capacity of mind that produces the original ideas and
responds the new situations with tactfully.
It is the process of creating novel products, ideas, or procedures that
are potentially relevant or useful to an organization. On this regard Vaezipour (2013) goes a step ahead and claims
that ‘a well informed intuitive mind can act creatively in dealing with
the most complicated decision-making scenarios leading to the novel-nonlinear
approaches, fast decisions and speedy reaction to the changes.’ Obviously, the
rhetoric of the literature suggests that creativity and decision making process
become inseparable and complementary to each other.
Creative people often claim that
ideas come to them ‘in a flash’ but Moorhead and Griffin (2009) claim that
creativity tends to progress through a series of four stages: preparation,
incubation, insight and verification. Here it is relevant to describe how the
creativity evolves through these four stages. According to the authors, the
first stage of creativity begins with preparation which includes the creative
process of education and training. It is the state of gaining knowledge from
education and training. Likewise, Incubation, the second phase of creativity,
enables the maturity of gained knowledge and ideas acquired during the
preparation. Similarly, the third stage of creativity, insight, through which
the creative person achieves a new understanding of the problems and
situations. The last stage of creative process is Verification in which the
creative person goes through for the validity. What is achieved or flashed in
the mind as new ideas require scientific experiment to confirm whether they are
applicable. Definitely, the person may feel it is like a flashing ideas but it
goes through these stages (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2002).
How can we get
more creative decisions? It is most
essential to promote the culture for creative ideas. While there is some
evidence that individuals vary in their ability to be creative, we also know
that individuals are more creative when they are motivated by intrinsic
interest, challenge, task satisfaction, and self-set goals. The manager can
enhance or reduce the creativity of the employee in the organization. Enhancing creativity
in organization is a big challenge to any manager. Managers who wish to enhance
and promote creativity in their organization can follow variety of ways which
are discussed below.
Decisions
are the choices made from two or more alternatives. Decision making occurs as a
reaction to a problem or an opportunity, (Cameron & Dennis, as quoted in
Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2002). In an organization, if the creative
environment is ensured, definitely, employee also can contribute to creative
decision making. A creative environment, is one in which there are clear goals
and objectives, and the freedom and autonomy to seek out the means of achieving
those goals without interference, (Amabile 1998). In such environment, a person
may have intrinsic motivation to achieve the goals of the organization.
Whenever his /her creative ideas are accepted, they feel respected in the
organization.
It demands a systematic and sustaining
leadership effort in order to develop an organizational creative and innovative
potential. ‘A creative environment is cultivated from the top and it is the
leadership team that sets the level in terms of how the organization work with
and develop its creative resources, which is present in every company’, (Amabile
1998). The leaders should actively
promote initiatives that generate creativity, remove barriers and formulate the
innovation strategy that should work as a guideline for the entire
organization.
If
the Creativity and innovation is emphasized all through the organizations
through a continuous updated, it is possible if only emphasized upon clear and
well formulated company strategy (Adam, Brezillion, Carlson, & Humpreys,
2006). Initiative and attempts will be
meaningless if such specific strategies are not developed. Particularly, the
leader’s role will be vital in encouraging the employee for creative
activities. The goal of the innovation strategy is to establish processes that
foster the creative minds and make them stay in the organization. By creating
an environment and an infrastructure to apt for the individual where their
creativity is explored or clicked, the leader taps them into the organization
and utilize for the progress of organization. It means strategically leadership
can develop the policy to capture the talented people and utilizing their
creativity for the sake of organization. It is important to implement the
received creative ideas which not only helps for the progress of the organization
but also motivates the employees intrinsically uplifting their morale.
It
means to say that the new member also can contribute in creative decision
making. If the manager could set up such culture where every individual could
contribute less or more in decision making process, obviously, there is a high
chances of getting creative ideas from each individual of the organization. A
good leader definitely incorporates them for making their decision creative and
sound which ultimately contribute for the betterment of the organization.
As
the Distributed leadership (DL) provides the opportunity to practice decision
making role to many individuals one at a time, they can contribute for creative
decision making. This approach addresses leadership along with teams, groups
and organizational characteristics. In practice, this approach objects the supposition
that an individual should take the lead to ensure change (Goeksy, 2015).
Distributed Leadership (DL) can be considered as people centric leadership
traits where responsibilities are assigned to the people involved holding them
accountable on the particular task. Proponents of this idea claim that shared
leadership is required since institutions are too complex to be managed with
only one individual. Responsibility for managing various complex tasks in
organizations is distributed among a myriad of individuals with different
roles. As each individual has their own creativity, it helps the organization
to be benefited from them. Each subordinate leader gets the opportunity to
think creatively, and implementing them differently. DL simply can be stated as
involving others in decision making and problem solving with their innovative
and original ideas.
The basic principle
advocated in this approach is that it promotes creative idea through shared
responsibilities. Obviously, many minds
are better than single mind. If the responsibility is distributed to many
employees, again, they can have the opportunities to utilize creativity for the
sake of the organization. By the same token, if the power and responsibility is
vested in a single leader, the other employees tend to think that it is not
their responsibility to contribute for decision making. They let leave for the
leader alone. As a result, the organization will be deprived off innovative and
original decision making and implementing them. However, distributed leadership
concept and approaches continued to be explained under concepts such as
If
the organization recognizes the resources and manages them properly, the
personnel of the organization will not leave the organization. The resources
may include material resources like working hours, money, materials and
technology, or mental resources like knowledge, ability or capabilities. It is
especially the application and the combination of resources which determines
the outcome of the creative and innovative performance. At the same time, if
creative and original ideas are rewarded in the organization by accepting in
the decision making, the organization will be highly benefited. Therefore, the
leadership needs to pay attention on how to mobilize different resources to get
more and more creative ideas for the advantages of the organization.
Constructivists believe that
knowledge and idea can be gained through shared and previous knowledge. ‘Such discoveries are only going to come about
when the environment is carefully set up to make the important patterns
discoverable’ (Taber, 2011). It means creativity of a person is explored only
through the information the person has received. Therefore, the organization
has to manage the information technology in the organization, so that every
person working there can have their creative ideas explored. This is the age of
information and every individual longs for the knowledge. The knowledge and
information received from the information technology ultimately helps to
explore the creativity of the person. As a result, those ideas can be borrowed
while taking decision. It helps not only to solve the problem of the
organization but also may help to explore the better opportunities.
Sometimes the policy and system of
the organization itself may discourage the creativity in the work. The Organizational factors may block
creativity at work. According to Amabile, T. (1996) there are some factors
like: expected evaluation—focusing on
how work is going to be evaluated; surveillance—being watched while working;
external motivators—focusing on external, tangible rewards; competition—facing
win-lose situations with peers; and constrained choice—being given limits on
how to do the work. These factors reduce the creativity in the organization. As
a result, the employee can’t contribute in decision making even if they are provided
with the shared leadership. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to such
factors and reduce them for the betterment of the organization.
Creative decision making has key
roles for the betterment and progress of the organization. As an organization
has many personals, it is necessary to utilize all their creative, innovative
and original ideas for the prosperity of the organization. For this reason, if
the organization adopts the policy of involving those individuals in decision
making, all of them can contribute for creative decision making. By
implementing those creative decisions, definitely, the organization can achieve
its goal. To get this into practice, it is necessary to adopt certain policy by
the organization like creating environment, promoting distributed leadership
and accepting the creative ideas from any level if they are creative and good for the organization.
Adam,
F., Brezillion, P. Carlson, F.S. & Humpreys, S.P. (2006). Ed. Creativity and Innovation in Decision Making
and Decision Support.London: Ludic Publishing Ltd.
Amabile, T. (1996) . Creativity in Context. New Delhi: West
view Press.
Göksoy,
S. (2015). Distributed leadership in educational
institutions. Journal of education and training studies, 3(4). Published by Redfame Publishing. Retrieved from:
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1067238.pdf
McShaine,
S. L. & Anne, V. G. M. (2010). Organizational
behavior: Emerging knowledge, and practice for the real world: fifth ed.
New York: McGraw- Hill Irwin.
Paudyal,
S. R., Pradhan, G.M. & Bhandari, K.P. (2013). Principles of management. Kathmandu: Asmita Books.
Schein,
E.H. (2004). Organizational culture and
leadership. California: Jossey-Bass Publications.
Schermerhorn,
J.R., Hunt, J.G. and Osborn, R.N.(2002). Organizational
behavior, U.S.A. Wiley Publication.
Simonton, K. (2001). History of creativity research. California:
California University. Retrieved from https://www.google.com.np/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiIveKap4_UAhUKM48KHXxVBzsQFghNMAY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsimonton.faculty.ucdavis.edu%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F243%2F2015%2F08%2FHistoryCreativity.pdf&usg=AFQjCNELdMQsIIrt880s8nb1dOkQpmmeMg&sig2=MuugA-LHYSr7VJ4GPjM4jQ
Taber,K.S.
(2011). Constructivism as educational
theory: Contingency in learning and optimally guided instruction. NewYork:
Nova science Publisher.
Vaezipour, A. (2013). Creativity in Decision-Making. Research Description, Jönköping University, School of Engineering.
The present paper contends that re-culturing school culture is most essential job nowadays and it can be achieved through transformative school leader. A transformative school leader can play significant roles in establishing corporate culture at school ultimately re- culturing a school in a new style, bringing new strategies and effectiveness in the school organization. Re-culturing a culture at school is a challenging job, yet it is possible to achieve through a transformative school leader. Transformative leader, as name suggests, can cultivate the new culture in a school ultimately challenging the previous culture of the school. This paper attempts to explore how a transformative leader can re-culture a school culture despite many obstacles.
Key words: re-culture; school culture, transformative school leader; corporate culture; organizational culture
Culture represents the unspoken
code of communication among members of an organization (Cremer, 1993). Every
members of the organization follow certain rules, regulations, code of conduct
which may be in written or unwritten form, that shapes the culture of that
particular organization. Therefore, organizational culture is a system of
shared meaning which distinguishes the organization from other Organizational
Culture.
Likewise, School culture has been defined as
“the basic assumptions, norms and values, and cultural artifacts that are
shared by school members, which influence their functioning at school”
(Maslowski, 2001). It is a set of visible and invisible rules and regulations
practiced over there. Every individual working at school, consciously or
unconsciously practices certain norms and regulations at school which becomes
the culture of that particular school.
In other words, what an individual, as a
school member, does and does not practice in the school organization, which becomes
the culture of that particular school. It plays a significant role in enhancing
school effectiveness (Heck & Marcoulides 1996). Especially, the school leader can play a key
role in shaping such culture at school. The success and failure of any school,
to a great extent, depends on the culture practiced there.
It
is said that ‘cultural patterns can produce innovation, growth, market
leadership, ethical behavior, and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, an
unhealthy or misaligned culture can impede strategic outcomes, erode business
performance, diminish customer satisfaction’ (Anderson, Anderson, & Lee,
2015). This concept can be applied to school environment too. As school is also
an organization and delivers the services to the people, it must have a
distinguished culture and the success lies in the practiced culture.
Therefore no one can under estimate the roles of culture in a school. It is necessary to re-culture the school with the passage of time to bring out the effectiveness in the school’s affairs. Re-culturing is possible through a high commitment and high performance seems to be distinguishing features of schools with a healthy organizational culture and high staff well-being (Sergiovanni 2004).
Leadership has
been defined in different ways in different stages of history. While defining the term, ‘school leadership’,
it is often used interchangeably with school management and school
administration (Pont, Nusche, & Moorman, 2008). Obviously,
there is a difference between school manager and school leader. Regarding this
difference, an often-quoted phrase is “managers do things right, while
leaders do the right thing” (Bennis and Nanus, 1997 as quoted in Pont, Nusche & Moorman, 2008).
Therefore,
school leadership goes beyond simply managing the school resources and staffs. ‘While
leadership involves steering organizations by shaping other people’s attitudes, motivations and behaviors, management
is more closely associated with maintenance of current operations’ (Bush and Glover, 2003). In short, school
leaders can transform the school environment through their vision and goals
going beyond existing current operations. They can set up new corporate culture
reenergizing the organization ie. “a set of norms and values that are widely shared
and strongly held throughout the organization" (O'Reilly and Chatman ,1996). It helps to establish a new
culture at school, giving vigor to the staffs and new identity to the school.
Transformational
leaders have been characterized by four separate components or characteristics
denoted as the 4 Is of transformational leadership (Avolio, Waldman, and
Yammarino ,1991 as quoted in Bass, 1993 ). These four factors include idealized
influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and
individualized consideration. As the
transformational leaders possess these qualities, they can play the roles in
shaping new culture at school. Therefore, transformational leaders have a
unique opportunity to begin the process of change by encouraging faculty to
embrace new levels of teaching and learning through a transformational lens.
The
outcomes of re-culturing are demonstrated through new forms of interaction and
professionalism surrounding activities such as joint problem solving, data
sharing and analysis, shared decision making, and distributed leadership (McLeskey
& Waldron, 2000;Walther Thomas, Korinek,McLaughlin, & Williams, 2000 as
quoted in Waldron & Mcleskey, 2010 ).
Transformational
leaders change their culture by first understanding it and then realizing the
organization's culture with a new vision and a revision of its shared
assumptions, values, and norms (Bass, 1985). Transformational school leaders
can reshape the school with re-culture of their vision and strategies.
In
essence, transforming leadership is a leadership that facilitates the
redefinition of a people’s mission and vision, a renewal of their commitment,
and the restructuring of their systems for goal accomplishment (Roberts, 1985).
Transforming leaders can re-culture the culture of the school through their
visions and strategies. They can challenge the existing culture introducing new
set of corporate culture through motivation of the staffs. They can bring out
the changes through ‘the collective action that transforming leadership
generate s empowers those who participates in the process. There is hope, there
is optimism, there is energy’ (Robert, 1985).
Every school has
a culture. Schools become more effective when they develop an appropriate
strong culture. As culture creates consensus, unity and motivate the staffs to
work efficiently, the transformative leaders can make the strategies accordingly
and can implement in the school. If the uniformed culture is developed, this
new practice of culture definitely has effect on corporate performance
introducing the new corporate culture. As a visionary leader, one has to think
seriously on how employees think about and value their work and priorities. It
is the responsibility of the transformational leaders.
In
essence, transforming leadership is a leadership that facilitates the
redefinition of a people’s mission and vision, a renewal of their commitment,
and the restructuring of their systems for goal accomplishment (Roberts, 1985).
Transforming leaders can re-culture the culture of the school through their
visions and strategies. They can challenge the existing culture introducing new
set of corporate culture through motivation of the staffs. They can bring out
the changes through ‘ the collective action that transforming leadership
generate s empowers those who participates in the process. There is hope, there
is optimism, there is energy’ (Robert, 1985).
It is essential
re-culturing school through corporate culture.
Tomlinson (1999) defines that corporate culture reflects the values and
interpretation of senior managers; the organizational culture, on the other
hand, embraces many subcultures’. It means it is a strong cultural pattern
practiced in the school especially of school leader. It helps the school to get
distinct identity as it creates brand name for the school differentiating one
from another school. It helps to become a school an icon among many other schools. Re-culturing a school with new
culture develops a sense of identity amongst members and it associates them
with the organization. Every staff feels closed to the organization with sense
of ownership as they strongly belong to the school in term of culture they
practiced. Every staffs can have commitment in the shared goals of the school.
This feeling of shared culture develops appropriate standards for employees and
holds them together to achieve the targeted standard of the school. In a nut
shell, re-culturing through corporate culture of transformational leader provides
a control mechanism for shaping the attitude and behavior of staffs ultimately
leading a school to a targeted vision and mission of the school.
Leithwood
& Poplin (1992) believe that transformational school leaders are in more or
less continuous pursuit of three fundamental goals: helping staff members
develop and maintain a collaborative, professional school culture; fostering
teacher development; and helping them solve problems together more effectively.
Definitely, this will help to create new culture fostering a corporate culture
in a school leading towards success.
Likewise,
Cheng (1997) thinks that our time demands ‘our school leaders to have a new set of
leadership beliefs and competence that can transform the old and traditional
constrains, facilitate educational changes , and develop appropriate school
environment for teachers and students to work, learn, and develop effectively’
(p.90). His beliefs also can be interpreted to mean that new corporate culture
in a school is most essential to re-culture the schools to gain the vision in
today’s complex situation which is possible only through transformational
school leadership.
Charles Darwin’s famous quotation claims that ‘it is not the strongest
of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive
to change.’ It means every organization has to incorporate with the change to
survive, lest, they will also disappear. If we apply this concept to school,
obviously, the transformative leaders have to struggle to bring the changes in
the school to transform school to better environment cultivating new set of
cultures challenging the old one. A transformative school leader can re-culture
a school’s previous culture ‘through Changing structure; changing technology;
changing the physical setting; changing the peoples’ behavior’ (Robbins, 1998).
Obviously, there is always resistance against
changing culture in individual and organizational level. According to Robbins
(1998), people resist changing culture in individual level due to certain factors like habit, security,
economic factors, fear of unknown etc.
whereas people resist in organizational level due to structural inertia, group
inertia, power relations, and threat to resources. As a result, cultivating new
culture in a school is not easy job yet a transformational school leader
manages all these obstacles efficiently and can set up corporate culture at school
level too through his/ her vision.
Furthermore, Robbins (1998) recommends certain
suggestions to manage the resistance to change in the organization through: education
and Communication; participation; facilitation and support; negotiation; manipulation
(giving desired roles); coercion (threat). It is possible to establish new corporate
culture by eliminating the obstacles. Transformative school leader can
re-culture the school by challenging the existing culture for the betterment of
the school.
Transformative
school leaders have the ability to manage schools well, to attract and retain
effective teachers, and to construct caring school cultures in which high achievement
is cultivated for all students. In addition, ‘effective leaders influence
teaching and learning by promoting ambitious goals and fostering conditions
that support teachers and help students succeed’ (Togneri & Anderson 2003).
Transformative leaders are at the core of every successful organization. They
cooperatively generate a vision and establish a climate for everyone within the
school community cultivating a new set of corporal culture challenging the
previous out dated culture.
In
other words, principals need to simultaneously use big-picture thinking and
practical intervention strategies to move their school organizations in positive
directions (Barnett, 2004) creating a new corporate culture.
In
a nut shell, transformative leaders can play the role in re-culturing a school by establishing corporate culture in
the school through shared vision, values and goals of the of the school by
motivating school staff members .
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