Some lines of problematization
In the political discourse of this momentous moment, as is the issue of "Efficiency or nothing", it is important to point out that there is a great need for training in the group of Directors and professionals who manage the institutions of our country.
It is essential that every process of designing an improvement system begins with the determination of needs that lead to making the decision to perfect the existing improvement and training plans in the institution that require it.
This relevance of managers and their functions is articulated with a questioning of the current ranking and the privileged training, suggesting that they are agents who joined functions for which they were not prepared and justifying the need for their attention in terms of professionalization.:
“Due to the importance of managerial and supervisory functions, the training of personnel of this type will be decidedly promoted. Since their performance implies special skills and abilities, in addition to the requirements of the echelon, selection mechanisms must be refined and training must be provided so that teachers and principals respond better to the high responsibility that their work demands. ”
From this need for training, inaugurated at the political level, an innovative discourse emerges, translating into government programs, with a language that tries to challenge the school principal, either as a leader or as a fundamental actor in educational changes in schools, or as management or manager of a social company. All of the above from a politicized discourse, made possible through various government programs and curricula of public and even private institutions, which until now have been accepted without further ado, a discourse that has not been questioned as to its origin, its content, its purposes, its techniques, its mechanics and consequences.
Today as never before, the Venezuelan nation faces the challenge of concentrating its efforts and resources to give a promising boost to the training of a wide range of professionals who, help to face the competitiveness that marks the totality of the processes and phenomena in the present time and that guarantees national development, in its integration with the Latin American region and in close collaboration with Latin America.
The preparation and improvement of the cadres and managers of the Public Administration in the history of Venezuela has not been a constant in the activity of more than 40 years of supposed democracy. In 1999, the reform of the constitution and of the curricular reforms were approved, which have gradually taken shape since the assumption of power by President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.
An important role in quality assurance is played by the training and training of workers in the techniques and procedures that are followed, to ensure quality in all processes, which in no way can be seen as a spontaneous process, you need a set of measures, well structured, that guarantee the objectives proposed in each case. Quality management is the responsibility of all workers and management levels, and must be headed by its highest authority. There must be a system of costs related to quality, which allows determining the efficiency of the quality system and contributes to the use of quality management, as a management tool. But, why prepare managers? In order to get closer to the best answer, specialists,They seek creativity and their responses have been, among others, the following:
- To make them better To do their job better To cope with change To make their organizations successful and competitive To raise the effectiveness of organizations
Regarding socio-political development, it is essential to know the current situation and the trends that can be seen as possible scenarios in a specific strategic horizon in which the organization will have to function and develop. Likewise, in technological development, it is necessary to be duly updated of the new equipment, processes, techniques, procedures, etc., in order to be able to foresee, with enough time in advance, what can be introduced or perfected, determine the threats and opportunities that arise and act proactively for the good of the organization.
Why prepare managers in the Theory and Techniques of Administration or General Management? Well, so that:
Master the theoretical, scientific and technical bases of the administrative sciences, which have been developed and formalized since the first contributions of the early twentieth century, without which the exercise of management will be done in a fundamentally intuitive way.
Get to know and study in depth the modern tendencies of the administrative sciences and their practical experiences, for the purposes of their application. Among these, the Philosophies of Total Quality and Management by Values can be highlighted as the most significant according to this author's criteria.
Be able to prepare and develop their management team and other technical and knowledge workers, which will enable them to face the changes that must be made.
Why prepare managers in the theory and practice of Strategic Management?
Every entity needs to have well defined its mission, vision and corporate strategic objectives in the long and medium term (not less than 3 years); as well as the strategies and action plans for their achievement. Without these definitions, the organization will go as a “ship adrift”, that is, without a predetermined course and the manager is the main manager of these projections.
For some years now, the theoretical and methodological bases on the development and implementation of strategies, as well as strategic thinking, have been developed and expanded. Without their domain, the best ones that best suit the characteristics of each entity cannot be applied.
Why prepare managers in Management Skills?
So that they are able to develop the necessary skills as managers, that allow them to carry out their individual and group work with efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness.
So that they transmit to their subordinates the best forms, methods and techniques for the execution of their corresponding managerial and support positions.
Why prepare managers in Management Organization?
In order for them to master the theory, principles, techniques, and fundamental approaches related to the design and improvement of organizational structures, which facilitate decision-making in this important technical field of institutions.
Based on the previous approach, in this paper some lines of analysis and problematization are drawn up regarding the training of managers in the Sucre mission:
To this, other unfavorable criteria are added, obtained from the empirical verification, which allowed obtaining a set of insufficiencies,
- Insufficient preparation and pedagogical improvement of the professionals who teach in the Sucre Mission. Limitations in the modes of action of the professionals who exercise leadership in the University Villages, based on arbitrary, uncontrolled and improvised coexistence, between the diversity of professions and areas of knowledge, without any structuring and direction. Accelerated rhythms of work, where the unexpected, the urgent and “learning by doing” were placed as a constant in the development of the Mission's socio-academic practice Sucre: Based on the study of theoretical contributions and, based on the experience obtained in cognitive, practical and evaluative activity, related to studies on the preparation of professionals in the educational field, specifically,Those aimed at training, the problem of the existence of theoretical gaps related to the premises that condition the training of the professionals who teach and direct in the Sucre Mission emerged. Absence of a strategy that establishes how to implement improvement of the professionals who work as collaborators in the Sucre Mission The above-mentioned theoretical and practical elements allowed us to recognize the presence of a contradiction between the social demand to favor the academic training of the professionals who work as collaborators in the Sucre Mission, from the transformations that are implemented and the theoretical and practical insufficiencies of the processes that are currently being executed.“The need to train school leaders in the substantive tasks of the school and to create conditions so that in their activity they favor academic affairs remains urgent and cannot be postponed, since the effective operation of the university largely depends on the exercise of this function. school. These figures concentrate their activity on attending to the multiple administrative tasks of the higher dependencies, often unaware of the work strategies and priorities established in the regulations, as well as the educational materials, in most cases, lack the necessary training to evaluate and monitor the teaching work and the operation of the school as a whole. "for the effective functioning of the school largely depends on the exercise of this function. These figures concentrate their activity on attending to the multiple administrative tasks of the higher dependencies, often unaware of the work strategies and priorities established in the regulations, as well as the educational materials, in most cases, lack the necessary training to evaluate and monitor the teaching work and the operation of the school as a whole. "for the effective functioning of the school largely depends on the exercise of this function. These figures concentrate their activity on attending to the multiple administrative tasks of the higher dependencies, often unaware of the work strategies and priorities established in the regulations, as well as the educational materials, in most cases, lack the necessary training to evaluate and monitor the teaching work and the operation of the school as a whole. "in most cases, they lack the necessary training to evaluate and monitor teaching work and the operation of the school as a whole. ”in most cases, they lack the necessary training to evaluate and monitor teaching work and the operation of the school as a whole. ”
Based on the previous approach, in this work some lines of analysis are drawn up of how to determine the needs for managerial training.
1.-Identification of the needs of Professionals and Managers
Professor A. Noquez (1997: 52) raises several aspects for a needs assessment to be complete, he considers:
- Collect real data. Do not consider needs assessment as a one-time fact, since no needs assessment is final and complete, since the changing situation in society implies accepting that the results of the assessment are provisional. Discrepancies must be identified with the purposes of the educational institution and not with its means, because the mistake of continuously confusing the determination of needs as discrepancies in terms of what is believed, desired or required, without taking into account the objectives that a certain group and organization must achieve. Include, as far as possible, all those who participate in the educational process: educators, students, families, community members and leaders.
According to the author of the present investigation, the needs determination data can be obtained in different ways, including: surveys, round tables, questionnaires, interviews, panels, etc., giving preference, however, to empirical or concrete data on the emotional or abstract ones.
For the determination of needs, these approaches are accepted from the two authors mentioned, without ruling out the possibilities offered by qualitative techniques, since in the context used there are complex interpersonal relationships that must be taken into account to achieve the objectivity required in the work.
In the author's opinion, the determination of learning needs will allow managers and educators to organize the educational processes of preparation and improvement, in such a way as to make social and institutional interests compatible with individual ones, as well as to appreciate changes in management levels., quality and relevance of the performance, the degree of satisfaction of the workers, the population and the community.
There is no “pure” educational need, nor is there one that responds only to political or administrative determinants; therefore, it is recommended to resize the concept of "need for learning", expanding its scope and calling it "need for intervention". This would allow to interrelate the different dimensions of the quality of the training processes, technical-professional dimension, interpersonal dimension, environmental dimension, social dimension.
The need for learning or training can be defined as the actual deviation between the individual's practical performance and that which the Management Preparation and Training System has foreseen, in that function or job, provided that this difference is due to a lack of knowledge, preparation or training. When performance is inferior for other reasons (organizational, material, psychosocial or other, unrelated to knowledge, aptitude and qualification) the problem has no solution with training.
Learning needs are the starting point for the search for a pedagogical, empowering solution, in order to contribute to the qualitative transformation of managers. The educational process therefore requires evaluating the result of the training tasks, improvements in the performance of professionals and managers, and the quality of the service achieved or not achieved with the effort made. It is therefore a System, with interrelation between its components and a particular development, where each evaluation of what has been achieved causes a restart of the cycle.
2. Importance of determining training needs
Analyzing improvement needs is a complex process, which initially involves: exploring, probing, identifying, diagnosing and evaluating. This point is of great importance since, establishing problems that can be solved with overcoming, and that this does not coincide with reality, implies a bad diagnosis and starting from a wrong point.
The purpose of the situation assessment step is to determine the training needs, this is also called performance analysis, which in turn verifies the existence of a significant performance deficiency to later determine if the failure should be rectified by training or some other means (change or transfer). The search for training needs is not much more than clarifying the educational demands of the priority projects of an organization. The determination of the improvement needs is a line responsibility and a staff function, the line administrator is responsible for the perception of the problems caused by the lack of improvement.
As previously stated, the need for learning or improvement can be defined as the actual deviation between the individual's practical performance and that which the educational system has planned for that function or job, provided that this difference is due to lack of knowledge., preparation or training. When performance is inferior for other reasons (organizational, material, psychosocial or other, unrelated to knowledge, aptitude and qualification) the problem has no solution with training.
For this reason, in all research on the Identification of Learning Needs (INA) it is methodologically necessary to divide the problems and factors found into 2 large groups:
Problems that are solved with educational processes.
Non-training problems that are solved with other measures (organizational, managerial, motivational, technical).
The learning needs must be conceived in a broad sense, including the transformation of the worker's personality, that is, his intellectual, attitude, emotional and volitional needs. The essential thing is to identify in a timely manner the deficiencies or insufficiencies of professional knowledge and skills, in the sense of their ethical and social responsibility, in the awareness of their cognitive limitations in the health sciences or in the management of their professional responsibilities, in the awareness of the moral commitment to the commission that society has placed in their hands.
Learning needs are the starting point of a chain of educational actions that include:
- Definition of educational objectives. Determination of content, approaches, methods and means to use. Organization and teaching strategy. Execution, monitoring and evaluation of results and impact.
3.-Preparation and improvement systems for professionals and managers
Currently, the preparation and improvement of teachers and management cadres must be done with a system approach so that the preparation and improvement is characterized by its holistic approach, it must include different areas of knowledge, among which stand out:
- The economic preparation The preparation in management The technical-professional preparation The legal preparation Environmental preparation
In countries such as Cuba and Venezuela that are focused on socialist construction and need to prepare and overcome cadres that respond to socialist principles, their professionals and managers are also required to prepare themselves politically and ideologically so that they are capable of defending the interests of the working people..
4. Managerial Management and Participatory Institutional Management
To the structural complexity of the production of discourse for the professionalization of school leaders, we must add the consideration of the different currents or theoretical-conceptual perspectives around the notions of educational management, school management and pedagogical management, as well as their relationships; a starting point is that, according to the studies of Leonor Pastrana (1994: 2-8), it is recognized that in the theoretical discourse around management, two theoretical-practical perspectives relevant to contemporary socio-educational thought coexist: managerial management and participatory institutional management01
Management management is derived from North American technical administrative models and management theory, where management is conceived as "the main action of the administration, an intermediate link between planning and the specific objectives that are intended to be achieved" (James, 1998), action that consists of promoting and activating the achievement of a mandate or commission, a process designed or directed by external or superior expert agents to be implemented in the operational structure, in a dynamics of planning, direction, control, execution and evaluation, understanding the latter as a measurement of results; In this way, from this perspective, it is assumed that schooling is prescribed by definition of the principal or driver of the school,who in turn transmits and takes care of the fulfillment of orders that come from above ”(Pastrana, 1994: 3).
For its part, participatory institutional management has part of its theoretical underpinning in French institutional pedagogy (C. Freinet, M. Lobrot, F. Oury, A. Vásquez, among others), in some contributions from Soviet labor pedagogies (AS Makarenko, PP Blonskij, etc.) and the Italian A. Gramsci. "The socio-analytical movement of the French institutional pedagogy is postulated by the self-management or self-government of the institutions (…) it proposes the active and deliberate participation of the members to decide the institutional course". (Idem).
These theoretical-conceptual currents must be taken into account in the political analysis of the discourse of educational management and the curricula for the professionalization of school leaders, especially in terms of categories such as: relationship between school administrators and school community; participation; decision making; autonomy; conflict resolution and everyday problems; etc; all categories, mediated by power relations02
5. A new training strategy for the school manager
In August 2009, the national government, through the LOE, initiated actions to try to define a new national training and professional development policy for the different subsystems of the Venezuelan educational system, which would support a national training system, updating, training and professional improvement, after a process that involved diagnoses, external studies to characterize the staff of teachers and managers, their professional performance, through which the possession of skills, knowledge, values and attitudes necessary to perform the managerial role, which is identified below:
|
Factor |
Competences |
Indicators |
| Professional performance of teachers and managers. | 1. Technical-professional Knowledge (Theoretical Training) (Know) | a) Mastery of the content of the Mission. |
| b) Mastery of the content of the programs they teach. | ||
| c) Mastery of the teaching methodology. | ||
| d) Adequate use of Information Technology in teaching activities. | ||
| 2. Overcoming. Skills (Know How) | e) Participation in scientific events and conferences related to the improvement of teaching quality. | |
| f) Motivation for permanent improvement. | ||
| g) Research tasks carried out. | ||
| 3. Attitudes (Values) | h) Solid organizational culture | |
| i) Contribution to the formation of values and citizen responsibility and to the development of evaluative capacities in
subordinates. |
Notes:
- Concepts that I assume from the differentiation established by Pastrana (1994).Following Foucault (1975), power is not as a negative exercise (prohibition, negation), not as an attribute or a possession, but as a dynamic confrontation of social forces, relationships that are always productive, a winning strategy.
Bibliography
- Foucault, Michel. Watch out and punish. Birth of the prison. XXI century. Mexico, 1975._______. "Nietzsche, genealogy, history", in: The microphysics of power. The pickaxe. Madrid, 1978._______. The order of the speech. Tusquets Editores (2nd Edition in Fable). Barcelona, 2002.Pastrana, Leonor. "Conceptual notes on school management", in: Organization, direction and management in primary school: a case study from the ethnographic perspective. DIE-CINVESTAV-IPN. Mexico, 1994.
