Assignment No.2
Q.1 What is school mapping? Identify its major characteristics which help planner while doing school mapping. (20)
School mapping is a set of techniques and procedures used to estimate future education requirements at local level and work out what needs to be done to meet them.
Many reforms have been introduced in school sector by the Government of Pakistan in which the major attention was given to the management of schools. According to Mathur (2005), management depends on controlling the available resources to achieve the desired target. Even most of the managers are not aware of effective planning or have poor understanding [1].
The most important aspect of the planning in school sector is related to the location of the institutions. The process of location planning in education is called “School Mapping’. It involves the process of identifying the communities and places where educational facilities proposed in the PLAN are to be located. It requires systematic effort designed to locate educational facilities in such a manner that targeted age-groups of the population are able to use facilities to their maximum advantage [2].
In recent years this phase is identified by the term “school-mapping”. It is an activity as indicated by the gerund “mapping” and not to be confused with “school map. The original term (“carte scolaire” in French) and the concept has been widely used in French-and Spanish-speaking countries [3].
School Mapping is the dynamic process of identifying logically and systematically the communities and sites where educational facilities provided in the plan are to be located. As educational facilities have been synonymous with schools, the terms have been rather narrowly conceived as school-mapping [4]. So, during the last decade, educational planners are engaged in widening the concept of school-mapping to one of the educational mapping.
This does not mean that one concept eliminates the other. For all practical purposes, school-mapping and educational mapping will remain distinct activities each with its own utility value, purpose and direction. The process of investigation for school-mapping for the school-mapping is the same as for educational mapping and its final result is manifold [5].
- It will produce a catalogue of educational needs (or learning needs) of the society as a whole;
- It will produce an inventory of available educational facilities;
- It will show which of the facilities are utilized or under-utilized;
- It will provide guidelines as to how the available facilities can be recognized by redistribution of either the facilities themselves or their users; and
- It will enable the new facilities to be provided where they can be utilized to the highest advantage.
But the main difference is that often narrow objectives and aims are concentrated at identifying location for the construction of school, classrooms, laboratories etc.
Evaluation of use-efficiency, reorganisation and redistribution of facilities and maximisation of use continue to be the next outcome of the school-mapping exercise [6].
1.1. School Mapping Activity
The last phase in the planning process, when the physical facilities that are to be provided under the plan are actually located or sited; that is, to decide where (in what community or geographical area) the school, laboratories, workshops and such other educational facilities are to be built or provided. It is suggested to undertake a detailed school mapping activity in each of the district covering school and non-school based data in doing this activity, the present stock of data at the EMIS center or cell should be considered to avoid duplication.
Establish close linkage with the other government agencies like ministry of Defence, Natural Resources or Environment, Census, planning Office and others to ensure that the requirements of school mapping as a tool for the in depth analysis of the existing situation of the district can be fully addressed. This will also build- up and update the present stock of data of the EMIS centres and cells [7].
1.2. Scope of School Mapping
With the recent development in non-formal education in areas such as literacy programs, post-literacy courses, vocations training and adult education, school mapping should cover not only the distribution of formal educational facilities but also the non-formal educational facilities [8].
The process of school mapping covers the following specific areas for expansion and improvement of facilities:
- Rationalisation of existing facilities by:
- shifting, closure or amalgamation of institutions;
- optimum utilisation of teaching and non-teaching staff;
- optimum utilisation of buildings, equipment’s, furniture, etc.
- Provision of new or additional facilities by:
- Opening of new schools or upgrading of existing ones;
- Providing additional teaching and non-teaching staff;
- Providing new or additional buildings, furniture and equipment in institutions.
Thus, school mapping has the double function of securing greater equality of education opportunities and at the same time of rationalizing the use of existing facilities in an effort to optimize the limited material and manpower resources.
Q.2 Discuss various elements and factors which affect the decision making. How decision education system can be more rational.
Factors Affecting Decision-Making
Some of the factors and personal characteristics that have an impact on the decision-makers are described below. Some factors are more important at higher levels of management and others are more important at lower levels.
Programmed versus Non-programmed Decisions
Programmed decisions are made in predictable circumstances and managers have clear parameters and criteria. Problems are well structured and alternatives are well defined. The problems are solved and decisions are implemented through established policy directives, rules, and procedures.
Non-programmed decisions are the mode in unique circumstances and the results of such decisions are often unpredictable. Managers face ill-structured problems. These problems require a custom-mode response and are usually handled by the top management.
To start a new business, to merge with another business or to close a plant are all examples of non-programmed decisions. For example, when Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak introduced the first Apple microcomputer in 1978, they were not certain about the market for it. Today, Apple Macintosh computer is a major competitor to IBM computers.
Information Inputs
It is very important to have adequate and accurate information about the situation for decision making, otherwise the quality of the decision will suffer. It must be recognized, however, that on the individual has certain mental constraints, which limit the amount of information that he can adequately handle.
Prejudice
Prejudice and bias are introduced in our decisions by our perceptual processes and may cause us to make ineffective decisions. First, perception is highly selective, which means that we only accept what we want to accept, and hence only such type of information filters down to our senses.
Second, perception is highly subjective, meaning that information gets distorted in order to be consistent with our pre-established beliefs, attitudes, and values.
For example, a preconceived idea that a given person or an organization is an honest or deceptive, good or poor source of information, late or prompt on delivery, and so on, can have a considerable effect on the objective ability of the decision-maker and the quality of the decision.
Cognitive Constraints
A human brain, which is the source of thinking, creativity, and decision making, is limited in capacity in a number of ways. For example, except for some unique circumstances, our memory is short term, having the capacity of only a few ideas, words, and symbols.
Also, we cannot perform more than a limited number of calculations in our heads and it is tough to compare all the possible alternatives and make a choice.
Q.3 What do you understand by communication? How do different channels of communication affect the working efficiency of an organization?
Communication is simply the act of transferring information from one place, person or group to another.
Every communication involves (at least) one sender, a message and a recipient. This may sound simple, but communication is actually a very complex subject.
The transmission of the message from sender to recipient can be affected by a huge range of things. These include our emotions, the cultural situation, the medium used to communicate, and even our location. The complexity is why good communication skills are considered so desirable by employers around the world: accurate, effective and unambiguous communication is actually extremely hard.
Communication Defined
What is communication? Communication is the sending and receiving of information and can be one-on-one or between groups of people, and can be face-to-face or through communication devices. Communication requires a sender, the person who initiates communication, to transfer their thoughts or encode a message. This message is sent to the receiver, a person who receives the message, and finally, the receiver must decode, or interpret the message. This sounds simple enough but is more complicated.
Language involves symbols and signs and is distinct to the culture that speaks and writes in that language. Effective communication requires a shared language and understanding of common concepts. It’s also important to bear in mind that a receiver may interpret what the sender puts out differently than what the sender intended, and that this is less likely if the two share the same culture and language.
Importance
The importance of communication can’t be overstated. After all, you can’t have culture, society, or civilization without the ability to communicate with one another. Good communication prevents wars and misunderstandings, helps us meet our needs, establishes rules and laws that aid in the structuring of society, helps people find and keep employment, provides information and guidance to people, and passes down cultural traditions, norms, and values.
Two adages to keep in mind about communication:
You can’t not communicate (i.e. we’re always communicating, even subconsciously)
You can’t take back what you communicate once it’s been put out into the universe (i.e. be careful how and what you communicate)
Types of Communication
There are many ways that people communicate. Language is deeply ingrained in culture and, thus, communication types and styles will vary. General types of communication include the following:
- Verbal
This is verbal, spoken language and includes not only the language and words spoken, but the tone they are spoken in, the cadence and speed, as well as formal versus informal language.
- Nonverbal
This type of communication includes posture, facial expressions, kinesics (gestures), and oculesics (eye movements and behavior). American Sign Language (ASL), which is an officially recognized language, also falls into nonverbal types of communication.
- Visual
Social media has provided the world with a type of visual communication that has to connect us across the world. Zoom, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and many other social media platforms have added a new dynamic to how we communicate with one another. Other kinds of visuals include signs and symbols that communicate a concept or use of audiovisual aids for presentations.
- Written
This is communication that is written in many forms, from emails and texts to old-fashioned pen and paper.
- Active Listening
This is a vital type of communication because it encourages and guides communication by reflecting back on what is being said and responding to the sender in a thoughtful and deliberate manner to indicate that the receiver is truly listening to what is being communicated.
Styles of Communication
There are different styles of communication that can include any of the types of communication we mentioned. Here is a brief list.
Q.4 Elaborate the role of management information system in control. Discuss consequence of inadequate control in an organization.
The MIS helps in strategic planning, management control, operational control and transaction processing. The MIS helps in the clerical personal in the transaction processing and answers the queries on the data pertaining to the transaction, the status of a particular record and reference on a variety of documents.
Here are some of the important roles of the MIS:
- The MIS satisfies the diverse needs through variety of systems such as query system, analysis system, modeling system and decision support system.
- The MIS helps in strategic planning, management control, operational control and transaction processing. The MIS helps in the clerical personal in the transaction processing and answers the queries on the data pertaining to the transaction, the status of a particular record and reference on a variety of documents.
iii. The MIS helps the junior management personnel by providing the operational data for planning, scheduling and control , and helps them further in decision-making at the operation level to correct an out of control situation.
- The MIS helps the middle management in short term planning, target setting and controlling the business functions. It is supported by the use of the management tools of planning and control.
- The MIS helps the top level management in goal setting, strategic planning and evolving the business plans and their implementation.
- The MIS plays the role of information generation, communication, problem identification and helps in the process of decision-making. The MIS, therefore, plays a vital role in the management, administration and operation of an organization.
IMPACT OF THE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
MIS plays a very important role in the organization; it creates an impact on the organization’s functions, performance and productivity.
The impact of MIS on the functions is in its management with a good MIS supports the management of marketing, finance, production and personnel becomes more efficient. The tracking and monitoring of the functional targets becomes easy. The functional managers are informed about the progress, achievements and shortfalls in the activity and the targets. The manager is kept alert by providing certain information indicating and probable trends in the various aspects of business. This helps in forecasting and long-term perspective planning. The manager’s attention is bought to a situation which is expected in nature, inducing him to take an action or a decision in the matter. Disciplined information reporting system creates structure database and a knowledge base for all the people in the organization. The information is available in such a form that it can be used straight away by blending and analysis, saving the manager’s valuable time.
The MIS creates another impact in the organization which relates to the understanding of the business itself. The MIS begins with the definition of data, entity and its attributes. It uses a dictionary of data, entity and attributes, respectively, designed for information generation in the organization. Since all the information systems use the dictionary, there is common understanding of terms and terminology in the organization bringing clarity in the communication and a similar understanding of an event in the organization.
The MIS calls for a systematization of the business operations for an effective system design. This leads to streaming of the operations which complicates the system design. It improves the administration of the business by bringing a discipline in its operations as everybody is required to follow and use systems and procedures. This process brings a high degree of professionalism in the business operations.
The goals and objectives of the MIS are the products of business goals and objectives. It helps indirectly to pull the entire organization in one direction towards the corporate goals and objectives by providing the relevant information to the organization.
A well designed system with a focus on the manager makes an impact on the managerial efficiency. The fund of information motivates an enlightened manager to use a variety of tools of the management. It helps him to resort to such exercises as experimentation and modeling. The use of computers enables him to use the tools and techniques which are impossible to use manually. The ready-made packages make this task simple. The impact is on the managerial ability to perform. It improves decision-making ability considerably high.
Since, the MIS work on the basic system such as transaction processing and database, the drudgery of the clerical work is transferred to the computerized system, relieving the human mind for better work. It will be observed that lot of manpower is engaged in this activity in the organization. Seventy (70) percent of the time is spent in recording, searching, processing and communicating. This MIS has a direct impact on this overhead. It creates information –based working culture in the organization.
IMPORTANCE OF MIS
It goes without saying that all managerial functions are performed through decision-making; for taking rational decision, timely and reliable information is essential and is procured through a logical and well structured method of information collecting, processing and disseminating to decision makers. Such a method in the field of management is widely known as MIS. In today’s world of ever increasing complexities of business as well as business organization, in order to service and grow , must have a properly planned, analyzed, designed and maintained MIS so that it provides timely, reliable and useful information to enable the management to take speedy and rational decisions.
MIS has assumed all the more important role in today’s environment because a manager has to take decisions under two main challenges:
First, because of the liberalization and globalization, in which organizations are required to compete not locally but globally, a manager has to take quick decisions, otherwise his business will be taken away by his competitors. This has further enhanced the necessity for such a system.
Second, in this information age wherein information is doubling up every two or three years, a manager has to process a large voluminous data; failing which he may end up taking a strong decision that may prove to be very costly to the company.
In such a situation managers must be equipped with some tools or a system, which can assist them in their challenging role of decision-making. It is because of the above cited reasons, that today MIS is considered to be of permanent importance, sometimes regarded as the name centre of an organization. Such system assist decision makers in organizations by providing information at various stages of decision making and thus greatly help the organizations to achieve their predetermined goals and objectives. On the other hand, the MIS which is not adequately planned for analyzed, designed, implemented or is poorly maintained may provide developed inaccurate, irrelevant or obsolete information which may prove fatal for the organization. In other words, organizations today just cannot survive and grow without properly planned, designed, implemented and maintained MIS. It has been well understood that MIS enables even small organizations to more than offset the economies of scale enjoyed by their bigger competitors and thus helps in providing a competitive edge over other organizations.
Q.5 Write short notes on the following:
- Delphi Technique
What Is the Delphi Method?
The Delphi method is a forecasting process framework based on the results of multiple rounds of questionnaires sent to a panel of experts. After each round of questionnaires, the experts are presented with an aggregated summary of the last round, allowing each expert to adjust their answers according to the group response. This process combines the benefits of expert analysis with elements of the wisdom of crowds.
Understanding the Delphi Method
Several rounds of questionnaires are sent out to the group of experts, and the anonymous responses are aggregated and shared with the group after each round. The experts are allowed to adjust their answers in subsequent rounds, based on how they interpret the “group response” that has been provided to them. Since multiple rounds of questions are asked and the panel is told what the group thinks as a whole, the Delphi method seeks to reach the correct response through consensus.
The Delphi method was originally conceived in the 1950s by Olaf Helmer and Norman Dalkey of the Rand Corporation. The name refers to the Oracle of Delphi, a priestess at a temple of Apollo in ancient Greece known for her prophecies. The Delphi method allows experts to work toward a mutual agreement by conducting a circulating series of questionnaires and releasing related feedback to further the discussion with each subsequent round. The experts’ responses shift as rounds are completed based on the information brought forth by other experts participating in the analysis.1
The Delphi method seeks to aggregate opinions from a diverse set of experts, and it can be done without having to bring everyone together for a physical meeting. Since the responses of the participants are anonymous, individual panelists don’t have to worry about repercussions for their opinions. Consensus can be reached over time as opinions are swayed, making the method very effective.
- Gantt Chart
A Gantt chart, commonly used in project management, is one of the most popular and useful ways of showing activities (tasks or events) displayed against time. On the left of the chart is a list of the activities and along the top is a suitable time scale. Each activity is represented by a bar; the position and length of the bar reflects the start date, duration and end date of the activity. This allows you to see at a glance:
iii. Efficacy of the personnel
Many companies’ returns are under pressure. This makes it important that employees carry out the correct tasks (effective) in the right way (efficient). By working efficiently, more can be produced with the same amount of input (resources)(1). In short, achieving more for lower costs, a higher return and less pressure.
Linked In
Efficiency means ‘doing things in the right way’.2 Two sorts of efficiency are often referred to, namely static efficiency and dynamic efficiency.3
Static efficiency. Static efficiency relates to refining existing products, processes or opportunities; making improvements within existing conditions.
Dynamic efficiency. Dynamic efficiency refers to the continuous development of new products, processes or opportunities, so that profitability improves.
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The importance of efficiency
Something is only efficient when it is effective. In other words: something is efficient if it has a useful effect. It has to be functional. Efficiency is the ability to act or produce effectively with a minimum of waste, expenditure or unnecessary effort. The focus is on the resources and speed with which organisational goals are achieved.
- Critical Path Method (CPM)
The critical path method (CPM) is a technique where you identify tasks that are necessary for project completion and determine scheduling flexibilities. A critical path in project management is the longest sequence of activities that must be finished on time in order for the entire project to be complete
