Managing Change
Change happens as a result of influencing both individuals and organisations, not only through creating new policies and procedures but also through development of personal strategies. The management of educational change is a rational task connecting the new improvement initiatives into the old practice so that what is required is done (Bennett, Crawford, & Riches, 1992). However, it is claimed that schools are being bombarded by change, whilst others say that there is nothing new. Policy makers claim that teachers are resistant to change and teachers complain that policy makers introduce change without knowing what really happens in schools. Parents are confused by new improvement initiatives and worried about the future opportunities for good jobs. Some parents insist on restructuring schools while others believe that core curriculum changes are needed (Fullan, 2007).
Education change must make sense. It is possible to be clear enough about what you want to achieve, or to be skilful about change management, but to lack the understanding of which changes are most needed, or the consequences of a particular change. Therefore, it is essential to know the specific consequences of educational change, and the process of involving all kinds of individuals, schools, and ministries that work in interactive ways. It is how all the above are involved in change, what is need to be changed, and how it can be best accomplished. To make changes that matter in students’ lives is the moral purpose of schools (Fullan, 2007). However, change fails and school improvements are not sustained when the infrastructure is weak, that is when teachers are working in a negative school culture, or in countries where the state is not helping to sustain reform. According to Fullan (2007, p. 13) “The problem is not the absence of innovation in schools, but rather the presence of too many disconnected, episodic, fragmented, superficially adorned projects”. Some change efforts are successful while others are failures, but the lessons learned from the successful stories in business sectors are that the change process goes through a series of phases and requires a considerable length of time, according to Kotter (2007). A study of school reform conducted by Desimone (2002) indicated that change in the education sector is similarly a slow process that takes anywhere from between five to ten years for the impact to be observed on students’ outcomes. Desimone concluded that, as it may take many years for a school improvement model or project to be implemented and for its effect to be seen, the slow pace of school improvement reform affects the ability to assess the implementation and to measure the effects on teachers’ and students’ learning (ibid.). But how is such change achieved? Kotter identified that there were eight steps that needed to be taken for sustainable change in organisations of any kind:
1) Establishing a sense of urgency,
2) forming a powerful guiding coalition,
3) creating a vision,
4) communicating the vision,
5) empowering others to act on the vision,
6) planning for and creating short-term wins,
7) consolidating improvements and producing still more change, and
8) institutionalizing new approaches (2007).
On the other hand, Fullan’s work with schools identified that the change process has three phases: phase 1: is the initiation which it includes the decision to proceed with a change. Phase 2 is implementation, which involves the first experiences of implementation. Phase 3 is the continuation which refers to whether the change is built into the school system or disappears by any decision (2007). These models, although derived from different sectors, have much in common, particularly in the emphasis on how to begin the change process, gaining commitment through creating a sense of urgency, and in sustainability, with reflection and the identification for further improvements.
This article highlighted the importance of school culture in organisational change. The creation of a positive ethos for school change is critical in order to improve its effectiveness. To improve the culture of a school requires development of a shared vision and high levels of commitment by all stakeholders. However, governments, educationalists and parents need to understand that the absolute goal of any school reform should be to improve students’ achievement. It is clear from this literature review, that unless there is real progress in students’ learning, no school improvement effort can be considered successful.
One of the elements identified as critical to sustainable school improvement then, was effective leadership: Principals who set high expectations for students and staff, facilitating a supportive school environment to enable the school community to achieve targeted goals, who manage teaching and learning and put in place improvement initiatives to ensure continued educational quality can be considered as effective leaders. Such leaders involve all stakeholders, creating an awareness and understanding of the urgency of change and reasons for the improvement, as well as providing the resources required, as well as the needed support. The complexity of the school principal’s role in building leadership capacity in others is a very large topic that, while beyond the scope of this review, is reflected in consistent recommendations for schools to become learning communities. However, it is clear that the concept of leadership and its effectiveness is central to improving schools. School principals develop sustainability by reinforcing the commitment of their staff and enhancing deep learning aspects that warrant further attention in next article, as well as ensuring school improvement initiatives will last over time, putting in place succession planning to facilitate continuity after they leave.
Thus, the article has identified the key elements for developing a conceptual framework for this study that explores the meaning of and the strategies involved in building school capacity for improvement and these are shown in Figure 3.1.
School reform initiatives round the world have been implemented in the belief that education is the key for global productivity. To achieve the re-culturing necessary for sustainable change the literature indicated that all stakeholders must ideally be involved in the reform. The literature also showed that this is not an easy task, as policy makers, school leaders and researchers have different approaches for improving students’ learning outcomes. The other dimension in building school capacity for improvement is the collaboration between the school improvement and school effectiveness models to link the teaching and learning process to the students’ outcomes. Successful schools have high leadership capacity, enabling collaboration amongst all stakeholders to take leadership roles in the school improvement process and in learning enhancement for all students. Professional development is another area that the literature review showed was central with successful schools providing teachers with opportunities for collaborative work to learn together and undergo effective professional development. The external and internal teams and their impact on students’ outcomes were also shown to be important in effective school improvement.
Figure 3.1: The Key Elements for Developing a Conceptual Framework for School Improvement
Figure 3.1 is a summary that shows the key elements for developing a conceptual framework for school improvement, as derived from the overview of the literature. These are the key elements that should be considered in the development of any model to improve schools in general. However, there was little about how to implement the change, apart from identifying the steps. Similarly, there was little published about school improvement in the Middle East, though the cultural context was acknowledged as very important. Therefore, this case-study was initiated to contribute to filling this gap about school improvement in the Middle East.
How to make the school improvement initiatives in the MoE in the KoB more successful was the driving question that initiated this study.
However, in order to answer this question a sub-set of questions was developed to guide the investigation:
Dr. Ahmed AlKoofi
Bennett, N., Crawford, M., & Riches, C. (1992). Managing Change in Education: Individual and Organizational Perspectives. London: SAGE Publications.
Desimone, L. (2002). How Can Comprehensive School Reform Models Be Successfully Implemented? Review of Educational Research, 72(3), 433–479.
Fullan, M. (2007). The New Meaning of Educational Change. New York: Teachers College Press.
Kotter, J. (2007). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review, 85(1), 96.
