For a long time, most schools at all levels across the country have operated with a relatively simple and traditional management model, with the scale of each school not large, the number of teachers and students being moderate, and the management scope mainly within a certain campus.
Now, when two or three schools merge, that picture changes completely. A principal may have to manage a school system with many school sites, hundreds of teachers and thousands of students.
If principals still manage according to traditional administrative thinking, it is very easy to have a situation where the apparatus is more streamlined but the management is slow and ineffective. The gap between the school board and teachers increases, and professional inspection is less thorough.
Therefore, what needs to be invested in after the merger for schools, in addition to the infrastructure system, is also the quality of people, specifically the management capacity of the school leadership team.
A principal in the new context must know human resource management, financial management, quality management, data management and digital transformation to promote the capacity of teachers in many institutions, ensure uniform teaching between school sites and connect and monitor activities remotely.
In particular, principals must have the ability to manage change, because every merger entails changes in psychology, organization and working methods.
Arranging the school network is actually not only an organizational reform but also a management method reform. If we only change the organizational structure without changing the way of operating, the goal of improving the quality of education will be very difficult to achieve.
The leadership capacity of the head is the decisive factor in the long-term operational efficiency of a school. And this school network arrangement is the right time to build a new capacity framework for principals, standardize the training program on school governance and increase autonomy in parallel with accountability.
Heads with sufficient capacity will know how to organize a streamlined but still effective apparatus, effectively exploit resources and create motivation for innovation for teachers.
School arrangement is therefore not mechanically merging educational institutions together. The ultimate goal is to form a new governance model, suitable for the requirements of modern education.
When each school operates with management thinking instead of just administrative management, this reform will truly create changes in the quality of education and a foundation for sustainable development for many years to come.
