European Journal of Education Studies
ISSN: 2501 - 1111
ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111
Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu
Volume 3 │ Issue 3 │ 2017
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.265909
THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE TO PLANNING
IN LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Evangelos C. Papakitsos1i, Xanthipi Foulidi2,
Spyridoula Vartelatou3, Konstantinos Karakiozis4
1
Adj. Prof. Dr., School of Pedagogical and Technological Education,
Department of Education, Greece
2
Lecturer Dr., M.Ed. in New Forms of Education and Learning,
University of the Aegean
3
Curriculum Supervisor, Institute of Training,
National Centre of Public Administration & Local Government, Greece
4
Centre for Counselling & Guidance of Elefsina,
Secondary Education Directorate of West Attica, Greece
Abstract:
In this paper, we describe the relationship of strategic and operational planning and the
need for their implementation to local educational authorities. The relationship of
decision-making to the planning process is discussed. The obtained positive results are
highlighted, whenever the strategic and operational planning is applied and when the
democratic method of decision-making is employed in educational organizations. The
aforementioned concepts (operational, strategic planning and decision-making) are
studied at the level of local Secondary Education Directorates with reference to school
extracurricular activities. The contribution of Systems Science is briefly demonstrated
for the management of the planning procedures, by presenting a case-study from the
Greek educational system as an example of implementation.
Keywords: systemic planning, strategic planning, operational planning, decisionmaking, educational administration
1. Introduction
The concept of planning is related to the objectives and goals of an organization.
Especially the planning of educational organizations (Bourantas, 2002; Gulick, 1937) is a
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Evangelos C. Papakitsos, Xanthipi Foulidi, Spyridoula Vartelatou, Konstantinos Karakiozis
THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE TO PLANNING IN LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
disciplined effort of producing basic decisions and actions that shape and guide what
an organization is, what it does and why it does so (Bryson, 2004). Namely, it is
determined what will happen, how it will happen and by whom. So this is an essential
element of the organization of educational institutions that should be implemented by
all educational staff. The relationship of planning to the future of an educational
organization is noted by Katsaros (2008: 56), who stresses that planning is the function
that precedes all the other functions of management and has a decisive contribution to
the fulfillment of the organization’s objectives. In addition, Koutouzis 999: 9 states
that planning determines the course of the educational organization in the future and
plays the role of a compass, defining objectives and preparing the organization to
follow a certain direction.
The obtained positive results from the implementation of operational and
strategic planning are remarkable. The most important are briefly identified by Katsaros
(2008: 56), who points out that the orientation towards the future for ensuring:
prompt scheduling,
resources, materials and people because of omissions,
avoidance of unnecessary actions or duplication and
better coordination of activities,
aims at the adoption of standards for process-monitoring and control of the outcome.
Other positive results, arising from the implementation of planning, are:
to identify hazards, weaknesses and opportunities that an educational
organization confronts;
to record the best possible investment in human capital with the least possible
cost (Saitis, 2008);
to minimize wastage.
2. Strategic and Operational Planning
The comparison of strategic to operational planning (Fig. 1) shows that the objectives
depend on strategic planning, but also complement each other (Athanasoula-Reppa et
al., 1999). In particular, the operational planning is perceived as a more feasibly
adaptive process. It is short-term and implemented by the lowest levels of the
administrative hierarchy. It specifies temporally, quantitatively and qualitatively the
designed actions and the means for achieving short-term goals, which divide the
strategic objectives in autonomous and manageable parts; essentially, action plans to be
implemented with a specific budget and human resources in a predefined schedule, as
correctly pointed out by Bourantas (2002). It results in decisions that are not critical and
is related to the daily operation of educational institutions.
European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 3 │ 2017
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Evangelos C. Papakitsos, Xanthipi Foulidi, Spyridoula Vartelatou, Konstantinos Karakiozis
THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE TO PLANNING IN LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Strategic planning
Operational
planning
Figure 1: Comparison of strategic to operational planning.
On the other hand, strategic planning is the basic task, in other words, the
mission of the educational organization. It is related directly to what the educational
organization is trying to achieve, namely its vision. It focuses on the future and change
(Bowman & Ambrosini, 2000) and aims to improve the efficiency of the organization. It
is long-term, since the goals have a potential of usually 5-year period (Bourantas, 2002).
It concerns senior educational executives (Katsaros, 2008). It involves the entire
educational organization (Koutouzis, 1999: 46), since crucial decisions are made. Of
course in the process of drafting, the overall strategic objectives that are determined in
the existing educational system and the existing restrictions are taken into account.
3. Decision-making
The decision-making is related to the planning of educational organizations, since
performed during the compilation of planning, namely, planning involves decisionmaking. This inseparable connection is aptly noted in most definitions of decisionmaking. Decision-making is the process aimed at solving problems related to the
objective or objectives of an organization (Saitis & Michopoulos, 1993 in AthanasoulaReppa, 1995: 75). It is the process of choosing a course of action among a number of
alternatives for achieving a specific goal (Butler, 1991: 42 in Chatzipanagiotou, 2003). In
addition, the decisions made are classified as either strategic , if they are related to
strategic planning and defining long-term policy, or operational , when associated
with the daily operations (Chatzipanagiotou, 2005: 45). Besides, the decision-making
takes place in all functions and in all stages of administration and, along with planning,
is one of the four basic features that are inseparably linked. The other two features of
effective management are the monitoring and organizing (Fig. 2).
European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 3 │ 2017
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Evangelos C. Papakitsos, Xanthipi Foulidi, Spyridoula Vartelatou, Konstantinos Karakiozis
THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE TO PLANNING IN LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Planning
Organizing
Monitoring
Decision-making
Figure 2: Key-features of effective management.
In modern international literature, multiple positive assets are identified about
the active role of teachers in decision-making within educational institutions. Namely,
whenever the democratic way of participating in decision-making is adopted (Andreou
& Papakonstantinou, 1994: 186; Antonio, 2008; Bergman, 1992; Everard & Morris, 1999:
85; Hoy & Tarter, 1995; Terzis, 2007) along with the adoption of participatory leadership
(Saitis, 2008: 14). This is successfully documented by Kastanidou & Tsikanteri (2015: 23),
pointing out that teachers - as persons close to pupils - are best placed to make
decisions related to teaching and learning, but also to improve curricula (Sergiovanni,
1994 in Apodaca-Tucker et al., 2001). Other advantages arising from the existence of an
active role of teachers in decision-making and the disposal of other ways, which are the
authoritarian and the persuasive ones (Everard & Morris, 1999), are related to the
collective responsibilities and their commitment to the implementation of the decisions.
It has been found that even teachers that disagree with the decisions made, provided
that they have participated in the decision-making process, will make every effort so
that these decisions will be implemented (Everard & Morris, 1999). Thus their
participation ensures the loyalty of those who will implement the decisions and their
compliance with the specific mode of action (Lainas, 2000). Moreover, the responsibility
for deciding doesn’t only belong to one person but is distributed to all participants.
Finally, the possibilities are increased:
for finding a solution through the use of collective experience, expertise and
cooperation of many (Tzortzakis & Tzortzaki, 1992) and
for improved productivity as well (Pasiardis, 2004: 204).
European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 3 │ 2017
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Evangelos C. Papakitsos, Xanthipi Foulidi, Spyridoula Vartelatou, Konstantinos Karakiozis
THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE TO PLANNING IN LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Mavrogiorgos (1999: 149) summarizes arguing that a collaborative culture, which
fosters the broadest possible participation in decision-making, will lead an educational
institute to become a major player in shaping and exerting internal education policy.
4. Systemic Planning
Strategic and operational planning at the level of local educational authorities may
involve tens or even hundreds of schools, thousands of teachers and pupils. The
accumulation of data and the management of diverse factors can be a tiresome process,
which can include missing of important aspects, underestimation or overestimation of
ruling conditions and classification difficulties. In such a context, decision-making can
be very prone to errors. In order to facilitate the administrative task, the application of
Systems Science can be introduced to the management of the relevant procedures.
The application of Systems Science in Education has been advocated by Banathy
& Jenlink (2001) and Banathy (1991). Within the most comprehensive conceptual
framework, which is Systems Inquiry, the Systems Methodology incorporates the usage
of techniques and tools for the systemic analysis of the various phenomena. In this
respect, Education is regarded as a social system. Such a conceptual tool is OMAS-III
that has been used in a variety of small scale educational applications. This method had
been initially proposed for the planning of operations, in general (Papakitsos, 2013).
Then, it was introduced to:
the extracurricular projects of career guidance (Papakitsos et al., 2015);
the teaching and learning of writing essays (Makrygiannis & Papakitsos, 2015);
the interrelation of vocational education to the labour-market (Papakitsos,
2016a);
the designing of educational websites (Papakitsos et al., 2016);
the development of curricula in tertiary education (Papakitsos, 2016b);
the teachers’ training, as a preparation part of the current process Foulidi et al.,
2016) and
the conflict management in school-context (Papakitsos & Karakiozis, 2016).
According to OMAS-III, the management and implementation of planning is conducted
by classifying the elements of a project in the seven following aspects: causal, outcomes,
resources, monitoring (administration), regulative, temporal and spatial. The systemic
inquiry is based on the corresponding journalist’s question to each aspect for a more
detailed presentation, see: Papakitsos, 2013; Papakitsos, 2016a: 168-171; Papakitsos,
2016b: 3-4).
The operational freedom and flexibility of mid-level educational authorities is
very restricted by the national educational policies (in Greece). Nevertheless, a suitable
field of operational autonomy is the annual extracurricular activities (projects), which
can be a tool for the application of practices that locally improve the overall educational
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Evangelos C. Papakitsos, Xanthipi Foulidi, Spyridoula Vartelatou, Konstantinos Karakiozis
THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE TO PLANNING IN LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
outcomes. The application of OMAS-III for larger-scale projects will be exemplified in
the next section, through the case-study of the Western “ttica’s Secondary Education
Directorate (WASED, Greece).
5. An Application
Indicatively, in WASED, for the last four school years, it has been accepted that the
goals need to be measurable, consistent, sensible, clear and have a specific timetable.
Accordingly, the target of reducing dropout to below 12% has been set for the school
year 2016-17 and beyond (causal aspect). Although there are no exact figures for the
determination of dropout, the available estimations show that in WASED it is certainly
over 12%. To cope with the problem it was decided to implement one hundred and fifty
(150) extracurricular projects (outcomes aspect) that are implemented annually (temporal
aspect) at the forty-seven (47) secondary-education schools of the region (spatial aspect)
in the standard topics of Health, Environmental, Cultural and Career Education. There,
pupils voluntarily engage in activities according to their specific desires and needs.
Alternative and supplementary goals have been formulated (outcomes aspect) that in a
total of about 11,000 pupils include:
the participation of at least five hundred (500) pupils of different cultural
background in school;
the creative expression of at least one thousand (1000) pupils, regardless of their
social class, gender or religion and the operation of at least one workshop of
music, theater, visual arts or cinema per school;
the cooperation with the local authorities for jointly organizing at least ten
activities, which result in the treatment and prevention of adolescent
delinquency, thus making school more dear and open to society.
The role of those teachers who coordinate and supervise each topic of the
extracurricular projects at the level of local educational administration (the educational
executives of WASED) is crucial in decision-making for strategic planning (monitoring
aspect). During the planning meetings for all educational activities, the relevant
decisions were taken by majority (Saitis, 2001), which were binding on its members
(regulative aspect). The current infrastructure and resources of WASED (mission,
structure, employees, skills, budget and services) has been taken into account (resources
aspect), along with what it is aimed to be achieved and how in all the fields of activities.
Before finalizing any decision, the conditions prevailing in the region had been
investigated and the conditions for achieving the objectives had been set (regulative
aspect). These include:
the high unemployment in the region;
the increased population of immigrants and Romas;
the phenomena of increased social marginalization.
European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 3 │ 2017
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Evangelos C. Papakitsos, Xanthipi Foulidi, Spyridoula Vartelatou, Konstantinos Karakiozis
THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYSTEMS SCIENCE TO PLANNING IN LOCAL EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Finally, to complete the strategic planning, the operating goals had been formulated
(operational planning) in order to ensure the conditions for achieving the strategic
objectives:
The coordinators/supervisors were assigned the relevant tasks and activities;
the actions to be taken and the cooperation to be developed with the teachers in
every school was determined;
the recording of the required resources and equipment necessary to ensure the
smooth implementation of school activities;
the training of teachers in the topics to be implemented (Foulidi et al., 2016);
other practical aspects of this mission were adjusted, like the forwarding of the
educational material and bibliography to schools for supporting the teachers and
the briefing of the Association of Parents at each school.
Thus, the decisions of the educational executives in the strategic planning were
in line with the educational policy goals set by the Ministry of Education, but
application solutions were alternatively developed in order to become more suitable
locally. At the end of every school year: the set goals are compared with the obtained
results, any deviations are interpreted and the strategic objectives are redefined for the
next school year, such as the further reducing of dropout.
6. Conclusions
From the previous presentation, the need for strategic and operational planning in
educational institutions is demonstrated, as well as the inextricable link between
planning and decision-making. It became clear that a democratic, participatory process
on decision-making and planning leads to a more efficient operation of the educational
institutions in conducting large-scale projects. In the case-study examined (WASED),
the implementation of extracurricular school activities was examined and how it can be
integrated into the operational and strategic planning of a local educational authority.
Finally, the contribution of systemic methodology was highlighted through the usage of
a relevant conceptual tool (OMAS-III).
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