Very common words that come across often when we are dealing with educational education are educational management and educational administration. They may seem synonymous but they are not - there is a striking difference between the two. Management refers to as working with people and through people to meet the organizational goals. On the other hand administration is more concerned with directing and controlling the functions that are required to run the educational institute. Administration establishes policies that guide decision making, laws and regulations.
Educational administration very simply means the operational process through which an educational institute is maintained in good working conditions. It is a process of utilization of resources in a way that promotes effective development of human qualities and organizational functioning. It encompasses all those techniques and procedures that lead to operating and making the organization function to the optimum capacity. Educational administration includes functions like planning, financing, organizing, directing, supervising, inspecting and evaluating. Educational administration gets into the role of setting up of goals of education, review, feedback and evaluation.
Education management on the other hand is the function that coordinates and directs the human resources to meet the goals and objectives of the institution by using the available resources effectively. Management looks into planning, staffing, recruiting, leading and the controlling the organization to accomplish the goal. Deployment of human resources, financial resources, technological resources and natural resources form the core function of educational management.
Educational management entails carrying the responsibility for the proper functioning of a system in an educational institution in which others participate. In contrast, educational administration establishes policies that guide decision making, laws and regulations. It is more concerned with the formulation of broad objectives, plans and policies.
The two main pillars of any educational institute are education administration and education management. Without the proper functioning of these two functions, an institute would collapse. Hence it is important that both work in close tandem with each other. Successful operation of a school depends entirely on its management and administration system.
There are few areas that both overlap. Let’s have a quick look at those areas. Practically, functions of managers and administrators overlap. Administrators not only set goals, standard and rules but direct and control functions of the educational institutes. Every manager is concerned with both administrative management function and operative management function. Management is a subset of administration. Both are concerned with achievement of goals. Both Managers and administrators perform at different level of management functioning – planning, organizing, directing controlling and staffing.
Educational Administration and Educational Management are applied fields. They both originate from theories of Organizational and Business Management and Administration.
