THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANIZATION

Organization theory is the body of thinking and writing which addresses itself to the problem of how to organize. It encompasses the study of the structure, functioning and performance of organizations and the behaviour of groups and individuals within them. It is worth noting that organizations thrive to adapt continuously to external conditions as well emphasize on internal hierarchical decisions for change. Hence, organizations persistently tend to balance the learning process between equilibrium and evolution. The goal in this paper is to engage in these topics for a theoretical discourse and to describe several issues related to the behavioral aspects of educational organization and hence, understand the employee-management behavior cycle in terms of organizational evolution.

This article is structured into three centralized sections followed by a conclusion. In the first section, we provide a background review of settings to be based on informative analysis to understand why and how school is looked at as an organisation. In continuum under this section, we foresee the school organisation structure with a deeper understanding that underlies hierarchy arrangement of managing a school system. Following this, we underline the description of behavioral aspect of education organisation. During this discourse, we try to delineate how organisation can associate and extract meaningful representational formation from the motivation theory at work place. In significance, we provide a short description of our communication to narrate all the findings followed by a concluding remark.

A school being a place where formal education takes place, it can be said to be an organisation. This means that as a social system comprising of group of people that interact together to achieve both school and individual goals. In this regard, a school must be a safe and organized place where clear set of general rules and school discipline are in order. The school must be supportive where learners and teachers can focus on learning and teaching respectively. For example, teachers must have a staff room where they can prepare their work before a lesson and pupils must have good chairs and desks for setting and writing.

The school is one of the most important institutions that human beings have brought. School involves cooperation, participation, involvement and delegation of activities. However, the larger the institution the more formal it is or the more hierarchical it becomes. A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads other individual members of the organization (Peter, 1969). This arrangement is often associated with bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is a chain of administration in an organisation with well defined line of authority that ensures order and facilitates a chain of command (Max Weber, 1947). In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. A good school looks like a pyramid as illustrated below and has also departments, committees and subcommittees.

Head Teacher

Deputy Head

Departmental Heads

Teachers

Pupil/Student

Source: Scott, (2008)

Peter (1969) adds that, structures are formed on the basis that there are enough people under the leader to give him support. He further illustrated that, this form of structure can be seen in a real pyramid. But, if there are no enough stone blocks to hold up the higher ones, gravity would irrevocably bring down the monumental structure. So, if the leader in the school organisation does not have the support of his subordinates, the entire structure can collapse. Scott (2008) highlights that structure of the schools can be divided into internal and external. The internal includes class grouping, subject grouping, departments, committees, working parties, timetables and room allocation. On the other hand, the external comprises of number of pupils in class, budget, age limit, appraisals, governing body such as boards, Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and salary scales, fringe benefits and incentives.

POSITIVE AND RESPECTFUL OUTCOME

Establishing behavioral expectations for students, staff, and visitors that encourage a positive and respectful outcome, culture and school climate are essential to creating and maintaining a safe and supportive school community.

Culture organisation

Organisation culture emphasizes the culture of organisation itself. This approach presumes that organisation can be characterized by culture such as beliefs, values, rituals, symbols and so forth. Within this approach generally consist of either developing models for understanding organisation culture or developing typologies of organizational culture. Edgar Schein developed a model for understanding culture and identified three levels of organisation culture: Artifacts and behavior; Espoused values and Shared based assumption.

Schein argued that if any of these levels were divergent tensions would result: if, for example, espoused value or desired behavior were not consistent with the basic assumption of an organisation it is likely that these values or behavior would be rejected. Typologies of organizational culture identified specific organizational culture and related these to performance or effectiveness of an organisation.

School climate

According to Elias (1979), school climate is a stable set of organizational characteristics that capture the distinctive tone or atmosphere of a school. School climate may be defined as the quality and character of school life. This therefore, should be based on patterns of student, parent, and school personnel experiences within the school and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures.

Additionally, Feldman (2000) emphasizes that the school must embrace open climate which promotes interaction among all the factors in the school. Openness of the school climate has been primarily to the expressive characteristics in schools For instance, the more open climate, the more committed, and loyal and satisfied the teachers are. Furthermore, the open the climate the school, the less alienated student tend to be. This implies that openness of the school climate will discourage unfriendly or unsympathetic behavior towards students. As a result, students actively participate in the learning process. A school with open, health and collegial professional interactions and strong academic ethics empowers teachers (Cayla, 2008). Meaning, teachers can organize and execute their teaching in ways that are successful in helping to learn, and when the school climate support them, teachers plan more, accept responsibility for the student performance and are not deterred by temporary setbacks to enhance student learning.

A part from that, positive student, teacher and head interrelationship characterize a health school climate. This enables many teachers always to like their colleagues, their schools, their jobs and their students. They are always driven by a quest for academic excellence. The empirical evidence has liked school climate with achievement. Organizational climate makes teachers to believe in themselves and their students, and set high achievable goals. It also makes the school heads behaviour to be positive, such that he or she is always friendly, open minded and supportive. The end result of all these efforts is that students in the school perform quite well in their work and this relates to positive school effectiveness.

To gain an overall understanding of the depth and breadth of this subject matter which is educational organization, it may require going beyond the established routes of entangling the comparative aspects of motivation theories and behavioral aspects in a school as an organization

It has been established that some form of motivations are needed at work place for employees or management from time immemorial (Lorenz 1950) which has undergone little alterations on the behavior of employees. For example, the Maslow`s hierarchy of needs.

Organizational behavior (OB) is a term related to the study of individual and group dynamics in an organizational setting, as well as the nature of the organizations themselves. Whenever people interact in organizations, many factors come into play. The subject of Organizational Studies attempts to understand and model these factors. This subject is becoming more important as people with diverse backgrounds and cultural values have to work together effectively and efficiently. OB seeks to emphasize them understanding of behavior in organizations so as to develop competencies in foreseeing how people are likely to behave. This knowledge may then help in controlling those behaviors that are not befitting the objectives of the organizations

REFERENCES

Elias, M., Zins, J., Weissberg, P., Frey, K., Haynes, N., Kessler, R.Schwabstone, M., Shriver, T., (1997) Learning:Guidelines for Educators. Alexandria.
Scott, William Richard (2008). Institutions and Organizations (3rd Ed.)London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Reddin, W.J. (1971). Managerial effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill
Elias, M., Zins, (1979) The U.S. Department of Education Office of Safe and Healthy Students (http://safesupportiveschools.ed.gov)
Bateson, P.P.G. 1976. Specificity and the origins of behavior. Advances in the Study of Behavior,
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Cayla, David. 2008 Organizational Learning: A process between equilibrium and evolution. Journal of Economics Issues 42, 2, 553-560.
Feldman, Martha, S. (2000): “Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change.”Organization Science 11, 6, 611-629.

THE MEANING OF DEVELOPMENT AND THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN SUPPORTING DEVELOPMENT

The world we live in is not a static world. It is dynamic and has constantly undergone some changes. Simply put, we live in a changing society. Every nation has held elections so as to find a better government that can bring development to its citizens because where there is no change there can’t be development. Since development cannot just come on its own, the state has to play a role hence this discussion will state what development is and describe the role of the state in supporting development.
Development is an extension of the theoretical or practical aspects of a concept, design, discovery, or invention. The process of economic and social transformation that is based on complex cultural and environmental factors and their interactions. The process of adding improvements to a piece of land, such as grading, subdivisions, drainage, access, roads, utilities. It is also the process of economic and social transformation that is based on complex cultural and environmental factors and their interactions. www.businessdictionary.com/defintions.
Development is a complex issue, with many different and sometimes contentious definitions which may dwell on social, economic, or political development. Development is about improving the wellbeing of being of people, improving their education, health and opening to their new opportunities for richer and varied life. A basic perspective equates development with economic growth. The United Nations Development Programme uses a more detailed definition- according to them development is 'to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community. Development does not mean building skyscrapers and payment of heft salaries for the civil service but it’s about the economical, social, environmental and political aspects of a nation or region. Furthermore the development should be sustainable even for the future generations to come and not just for the present to enjoy. Development refers to the act of improving the quality of life and making sure everyone has the preference in what life has to offer. These choices are widened through the combined effort of local people, international bodies, governments and a variety of civil society organisations such as non-governmental organizations and religious groups.
The role of the state in development has become one of the most hotly contested policy issues of the post-colonial era Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular. According to Matinussen (1997:257) ‘the debate concerning the role the state should play in development policy and what strategies bear most credence has been incessantly charged since the end of 1940s’. Although the controversy around which agency is more central in driving the development process between state and markets still a matter of debate, in a way some states favor communist ideologies while others favor capitalist ideologies. It is evident that since the 1980s through to the 1990s, dominant foreign actors, especially the Bretton Woods institutions have imposed their policies over the nationalist political elite, dictating Africa’s development path making it difficult for states to choose means of supporting development. This has had dire consequences for both political sovereignty and autonomous economic initiatives. No other country in the Southern African region provides such a vivid example of this contradiction between imperialist hegemony and national sovereignty as Zimbabwe does today, Matlosa (2002).
The problem with African countries is that they inherited economies that are backward, skewed and underdeveloped as a result of Western colonial rule. So since independence, African states have embarked on the transformation of inherited economic structures with varying degrees of success. The debate about the role of the state in development in Africa reached its peak in the 1970s. Therefore the state needs to create an entrepreneurship friendly environment and infant industry promotion amongst other means. The state is not to rely on more market forces for it to have development. Without government intervention states would be caught in a vicious circle of poverty, Baur (1984). However neoliberal policy recommendations aim at dealing with state failure through structural adjustment programs. The recommendations focus on fiscal, austerity, privatization, trends, liberalization and deregulation to increase the freedom of action for private entrepreneurs’, Rapley (2007). In this way the state supports development. The logic behind is rises from the fact that government spending fosters high inflation. More over the state owned enterprises are less efficient than the private sector. When government fails to allocate resources for its departments it borrows funds from the co-operating partners. But usually with strings attached. According to (IMF) international Monetary Fund a country that borrows agrees to adjust its economic policies to overcome the problems that led to it to seek financial aid from the international community, International Monetary Fund (2011).
The state needs to support development by protecting its local industries through various policies. For example Henry VIII aimed to support the domestic processing of wool which accounted for roughly half of the English industry in that time through taxing exports of raw wool, Chang (2002). As can be seen from the above example there was promotion of infant industry. Back here in Zambia the government of Zambia has been supporting small scale farmers through many programs such as the rural note book program on radio among others. The cash transfer schemes is one such programs where there is government support. The state needs to formulate or introduce policies that promote its manufacturing industry. For example reduced tariffs a developmental state has the capability for sustained economic growth (i.e. high gross domestic product (GDP)), and development (i.e. welfare services to the mass of the population), qualities that Mauritius and Botswana have.
The Southern Africa region is still confronted with enormous development challenges, which have not been resolved since the early 1980s. The Lagos Plan of Action, the UNECA proposals for an alternative development agenda and the structural adjustment in the late 1980s have not achieved the intended results, as the continent has nothing to show for all these efforts in terms of economic progress and regional integration. These have and are, arguably, development projects driven primarily by the nationalist political elite aimed at charting some autonomous development vision and destiny for the continent, Ake (1996).

However, part of the failure of the nationalist and state-driven development models was the resistance from the donor community and disapproval of such by the Bretton Woods institutions who jointly devised alternative development strategies such as the early 1980s Berg Report, through the late 1980s reports up to the current World Bank report on “Can Africa Claim the 21st Century”. In these competing development agendas, there is no doubt that the nationalist agenda has lost to Bretton Woods and the Washington consensus, Ake (1996), Kidane and Logan (1995).
Many African states relied heavily on expatriates, who subsequently produced development plans whose policies, programs and targets took for granted the inherited economic structure of their respective countries. In Southern Africa, most post-colonial states depended on expatriates for the formulation of national development plans that usually ran from five to fifteen years. At the same time, donors financially supported these development plans. In Zambia, the ratio of expatriates (mostly macro-economists) to national experts at the National Commission for Development planning in 1975 was 21 to 4, Ake (1996). The above explains why economic nationalism remained heavily at the center of development in the continent. Although they allowed foreign resources to complement their own mission and effort, nationalists remained focused and central to the development process in the continent.gai at the cost of community or widespread communities.
Last but not the least, the role of the state in development has been an issue of heated debate at theoretical and policy arenas in the Southern African region especially since the attainment of independence in the 1960s. Two main alternative or contrasting development agendas that have driven the debate were those of the nationalist political elite on one hand and those of foreign capital on the other. The former espoused what in ideological and policy terms could be described as economic nationalism. The latter espoused what could be described as economic markets. State intervention, as a key policy thrust of a development process is much stronger in respect of economic nationalism, which in itself is an expression of the political commitment of African states to chart an autonomous development path.

REFERENCES

Ake. C (1996) Democracy and Development in Africa. Washington D.C, The Brookings Institution.
Baur John (984) music through literature. Vol: 1.
Chang H. J (2002) kicking away the ladder. London, Anthem Press.
International Monetary Fund (2011) International MonetoryFund Conditionalities.
Accessed on 14/04/14 @ 10:39 from www.imf.org/external/np/ex/facts/conditionshtm.
Kidane Mengisteab and Logan B. Ikubolajeh (1995) Southern African Political EconomicSeries. Cape Town, NJ Publishers.
Matlosa Kabhele (2005) Rethinking African development: a paper presented at the conference. Maputo.
Rapley. J (2007) (3rdeds) understanding development: theory and practice in the third world. New York, Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Todaro M. P (1992) Economics for a developing World. London, Longman limited.

THE REASON FOR TESTING IN SCHOOLS

Testing focuses on learning, teaching and outcomes to provide information woven into the structure of educational practice. It informs the school how well their pupils are learning what teachers are teaching. The information is used by the school to make changes in the learning environment, and is shared with pupils to assist them in improving their learning and study habits. Students’ test performances, individually and collectively, give teachers feedback on the effectiveness of their instruction, guiding lesson planning, instructional pacing, and the organization of individualized or small-group instruction. Low-stakes “formative” assessments assist both students and teachers with ongoing monitoring of student learning, enabling timely intervention when understanding falters. In view of this, we are prompted to write a report based on things teachers’ test, the kind of test, the use they make of the results and problems experienced in testing.
Testing as, “a method of evaluating personality in which an individual, living in a group under partly controlled physical and social conditions, meets and solves a variety of lifelike problems…and is observed and rated.” In testing, learners must be given many opportunities to show the teacher what they know and what they can do. Muzumara (2007:103) is of the view that “testing helps teachers to know their progress, pupils’ strengths and weaknesses, their ability level and how best they need to be taught.” It is a classroom research to provide the improvement of teaching and learning. It about the pupil’s learning and understanding for the purposes of grading and reporting. It is the observation of students in the process of learning, the collection of frequent feedback on pupils’ learning, and the design of modest classroom experiments that provide information on how pupils learn and how they respond to particular teaching approaches. It helps individual teacher obtain useful feedback on what, how much, and how well their pupils are learning.
Pupils are also tested in co-curricular activities. These help in predicting the future needs of pupils. Gawe and Vakalisa (2000:282) state that “the awareness of learners’ progress is not confined to one to two tests.” It involves many activities as it mentioned above. This is very important because it gives them a wider ranger to be graded. When a pupil is not doing well in one area he or she can gain the other grades in the other area.
Testing may focus on grades classroom components other than course content and mastery level. These include discussion to test verbal ability. Individual tests help determine the classifications of students as gifted or learning disabled. The quizzes, unit tests, and final exams that teachers create help determine the pacing of classroom instruction, instructional grouping, and marks and grades, as well as informing students about expectations for learning and about their success in meeting those expectations. The relevant points here are that students are supposed to work at learning “earning” grades, and tests are supposed to reveal what they have accomplished. Tests are fair because they are objective and each student answers the same questions under the same conditions, alone and unaided. These achievement tests motivate and reward effort by providing students with opportunities to demonstrate their learning achievements.
Teachers use graded tests for which the aim is to provide the school with information on what, how much, and how well pupils are learning. Payne (1997:474) contends assessment as “the systematic evaluative appraisal of an individual’s ability and performance in a particular environment or context. Content-specific needs to respond to the particular needs and characteristics of the teachers, pupils, and disciplines to which they are applied. It means of what works in one class will not necessarily work in another.
It determines the degree of achievement of major outcomes of pupils’ course of study. It is concerned with the assignment of final marks or grades. We also recorded verbal tests which are the ones in which language plays a major part. Pupils’ ability to speak and read determines effectiveness on this kind of test. Non-verbal test indicates the pupils’ speed of manipulation, accuracy of movement and sharpness of perception. The use of language is minimized but not eliminated.
On performance test, the pupil is asked to perform an act, much as he or she would in a real-life or repeat a series of digits given to him or her orally. A group test is one of rating scales. It is one which a number of pupils must take simultaneously. On the other hand, an individual test is one which requires one examiner for each examines. The test may be classed according to their purposes.
Aptitude tests are designed to indicate the pupils’ capacity to learn. The most common are intelligence tests. Tests of reading-readiness are common. When it comes to achievement tests, there is an indication of the pupils’ level of performance in specific academics areas such as reading, spelling, mathematics, language usage, comprehension etc. Mehan (2008, p. 46) nicely summarizes the traditional argument for achievement tests as a basis for grading, promotion, and college admissions: “Pupils are placed in environments where they can achieve through their effort and hard work.” Pupils have the opportunity to compete with peers and are judged on the basis of their individual performance. The meritocratic thesis defines educational success as a matter of individual effort and hard work.

Policy makers seize upon performance assessments as a way to encourage higher-order thinking and problem solving in the classroom. The hope is to harness the power of measurement-driven instruction for good with tests that they would want teachers to teach. On the other hand, Tests are intended to monitor and enforce adherence to a prescribed curriculum.
Schools also use results to refocus their teaching to help pupils make their learning more efficient and more effective. The purpose is to focus the primary attention of teachers and pupils on observing and improving pupil learning rather than on observing and improving teaching. Standardized tests inform people about the effectiveness of the public schools they are supporting. Test-score based accountability is creating a rationale for rejecting two thirds of our students as unworthy of higher education. During the course pupils are assessed in order to see if they can be moved to the next educational stage. The scores on these tests are used by schools to make decisions about kids--to retain students, as screening devices for middle school and high school entrance, for entry into gifted or accelerated programs, and to decide which kids need remediation. They are part of a great sort and select machine within school systems.
Using same tests for all pupils, those in well-funded posh schools along with students trying to learn in under-funded, ill-equipped schools is grossly unfair, and the outcome is quite predictable. Since pupils do not receive equal educations, holding identical expectations for all pupils places the poorer ones at a disadvantage. Data confirm that females, poor pupils and those with disabilities are disproportionately failing high tests. School districts with the greatest numbers of poor children fail test, even after taking it for a second time. Even moderate income differences could result in major test score differences.
There are, of course, competing accounts of the ways testing functions in our educational system. The fairness and objectivity of educational tests become less clear when differences in educational opportunity are considered. If educational success is determined by factors other than individual aptitude and effort, then sorting and selecting based on test performance may be regarded as quite unfair. In short, achievement reflects both individual effort and educational opportunity. Educational opportunity, in turn, comprises both within-school and out-of-school factors. Within-school factors, including access to highly qualified teachers and other resources, are unequally distributed. Out-of-school factors, including home and community resources, are also unequal. The simplified logic of a meritocracy in which students compete on an equal basis ignores both in-school and out-of-school differences in opportunity to learn.
In addition, tests that students must complete alone and unaided, in competition with others, perform well with a view of knowledge as an individual possession, carried inside the heads of learners. Adherence to that view may create a gap between conceptions of mathematics or science in the classroom versus the contexts of professional practice. Along with the view of knowledge as an individual possession, our accustomed testing practices fit comfortably with a knowledge transmission model of schooling, in which the teacher and textbook are sources of knowledge and students are its (more or less passive) recipients. That said, conventional modes of assessment by no means rule out students’ active engagement with the subject matter.
The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives drew attention to the tendency for item writers to focus on low-level skills rather than “higher-order thinking. The emphasis on objectivity leads to tests posing well-structured problems with a single right answer of a pre-determined form. In this view, schooling should equip students to approach new problems and figure out what they would need to learn in order to solve them. This is a sophisticated version of “learning to learn” as a goal of schooling.
In conclusion, Tests are central in education sector. They provide a feedback to what is taught and it helps into the sorting and selecting process at the point of college admissions. High school exit examinations are viewed as a form of quality assurance, but also stand as significant barriers to completion for substantial numbers of pupils. Government testing systems define school-level success or failure, and a range of sanctions are imposed if scores fall short of targeted levels. We have also looked at the impact of tests and have noted that using same tests for all pupils is grossly unfair because pupils do not receive equal educations.

REFERENCES
Gawe, N. et al (2002) Teaching-Learning Dynamics. Johannesburg: Heinemann Higher and Further Education Ltd.
Hammond, L. and Snowden, J. (2005). A Good Teacher in Every Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Macmillan (2002). English Dictionary for advanced learners. Oxford: Macmillan publishers
Mehan, N. (2008). Test and learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Muzumara, P. M. (2007). Becoming an Effective Science Teacher. Chongwe: Nistcol.
Nitko, A (1996) Educational Assessment of Students. Ohio: Prentice-Hall International ltd.
Oliver, A. L (1977) Curriculum Improvement. New York: Harper and Row.
Payne, S (1997) Validity of assessment. Montréal: University Press