Organisational modelsThe bureaucratic model

A bureaucracy is a type of formal organisation which has certain characteristics aimed at making it work efficiently. For example, large companies and government offices are often run along bureaucratic principles because they have many people working in then doing lots of different jobs. Managing all these people is made easier by having strong centralised control with a hierarchy of administration. This means that power and authority are given to individuals in accordance with their status and role at each level with the decision-making being controlled by rules and regulations. In this way, decision-making is depersonalised insofar as it comes from the official rank of the individual rather than him or her.

Now read p47-48 of Bush to get an idea of these features of bureaucratic organisations.

 Division of labour Hierarchy of authority Written rules and regulations Impersonal

Education systems and schools are large and complex organisations. Even a primary school with say, 500 students and 20 staff, is extremely large compared to the offices of most businesses or to most factories. It is not surprising therefore that bureaucratic principles have been commonly applied in the running of schools by many modern societies. Power and authority rest normally with the Ministry of Education whose officers make decisions to be passed down to schools.

If you were the Minister of Education, can you list a few reasons why you would be in favour of some or all of these bureaucratic characteristics to assist you in running the education system of your country? Pages 48-50 of Bush may help you with this.

Bureaucratic organisations generally have administrative class responsible for maintaining coordinative activities of the members and Work of the school is divided on the basis of specialisation to take the advantages of division of labour in ministry of education.

In the light of your own experiences, how far would you describe the education system of the UAE as bureaucratic?

50% of the education system is defined as bureaucratic where the ministry take all the disuses without involving the teachers who play a big role in the students learning. On the other hand ministry of education takes an entrepreneurial approach to involve the private sector, improve and modernize facilities, reduce bureaucracy, update curricula and take advantage of information technology. Also, there is some principles take who make discuses to develop the school in her own perspective and the staff has to follow her/him.

Limitations of the bureaucratic model

Considering that bureaucratic principles were seen as the means to achieve efficiency, it is ironic that the terms bureaucracy and bureaucratic are most widely used nowadays to describe organisations which are slow and cumbersome with too much official processing or “red tape” - in other words, those which are inefficient. This is because the features of bureaucratic management can have both positive and negative effects.

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Bush outlines some of the disadvantages of the bureaucratic model as it is applied to schools on pages 50. Read about these before going on to complete the following:

1.There is a danger that the process of administration can become more important than the goals of the school. More time, resources and energy can become devoted to management than to the education of children. Can you give any examples of this from your own experience?

From my experience in schools, I realized that the principle focus was in developing the management rather than improving teaching or education. From my experience I saw a show of goals without implementation of them in the school. Also The ministry of education were focusing on the system of completing the whole curriculum rather than having students understand the context of the curriculum.

2. Fixed rules and regulations can prevent the kind of flexibility required to make improvements in teaching and learning.

For example: Teachers don’t have access to challenging, engaging students and meet their individual need.

3. Another difficulty in applying this model to schools rests with the people working in them. Read what Bush has to say about this at the top of page 50 and on pages 62-66. Explain this in your own words:

The role of the teacher affect too, because if the teacher do not apply innovation in her work the main focus is to do her work as she told which is no way to see new changes in education.

4. Setting goals in a school can be difficult. In a manufacturing business, goals might be centred on increasing production, lowering operating costs and maximising profits. In a school however, although a goal might be to increase average examination scores, education involves much more than this and contains elements which are not easily measured or quantified. Discuss this issue for a few minutes.

5. Decision-making in a school can present problems in any kind of top-down administration. In dealing with production levels in a factory, for example, it is relatively easy for the managers to make rational decisions. In dealing with education and its application to children, the issues are a lot more complex. Teachers and school principals, collectively or individually, often have to make decisions about what is best for the children under their care. These decisions are not always rational nor can they always be based on prescribed criteria. More often, they are based on personal professional experience applied to situations which may have an infinite number of variations. Decisions made under such circumstances are often more subjective/emotional rather than rational.

Discuss this and give a few examples of when this could happen.Knowing the problems is essential before decisions making and choice the possible and the most appropriate solution is the way if decisions making with taking into account that professional experience played an important role to evaluate the chosen solutions.

6. In addition, it cannot be assumed that teachers act as individuals making decisions consistent with their official roles. We read earlier about how individuals and groups within an organisation act in an informal way as a result of personality, friendship groups and their own individual personal and professional needs. Far from being the dispassionate decision-makers remote from outside influences and acting within the prescribed parameters appropriate to rank, teachers often

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act individually or collectively, in accordance with their own preferences, values and professional judgement.How might a group of teachers react if a school principal handed down a directive which they did not feel they could support professionally? Can you give an example?

They can support their perspectives with actions to cooperate with each other and suggest involving the school principal with them to support them. For example they don’t have to wait to do changes and wait the support they can start the first step. To conclude, think about the following quote concerning leadership in bureaucracies and decide how far a school principal fits this description.

Under the bureaucratic model, the leader is seen as the hero who stands at the top of a complex pyramid of power. The hero’s job is to assess the problems, consider the alternatives and make rational choices. Much of the organisation’s power is held by the hero and great expectations are raised because people trust him to solve problems and fend off threats from the environment. (Baldridge et al 1978 in Bush 2011 page 59)

Write your comments here

This model has disadvantages and advantages but from my perspective I can see changes comes from their own without following the bureaucratic model or solving problems under pressure of power. It can discourage creativity and innovation of both employees and organization.

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