The Headmaster as Administrator of the School Community
| Published date | 01 January 1964 |
| Date | 01 January 1964 |
| Pages | 2-8 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009575 |
| Author | MAURICE BROWN |
| Subject Matter | Education |
2 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL, ADMINISTRATION
VOLUME II, NUMBER 1 MAY, 1964
The Headmaster as Administrator of the
School Community
MAURICE BROWN
(An address delivered to the Headmasters' Conference of the Independent
Schools of Australia.)
A school is an organisation. As such it is worthy of study, as is
the job of its senior administrator, since it is his task to make
educational resources effective. The fundamental objectives of
the organisation must be clearly understood; its organisational
structure clearly thought out. Attention needs to be paid to
delegation, which not only gets work done, but develops the
people who do it; to co-ordination, whose best springs are
found in staff involvement; to control, where there is no substi-
tute for personal observation; to communication, upon which not
only efficiency but morale, depend; to assessment, which mea-
sures the extent of the achievement of fundamental objectives.
When a teacher takes charge of a school, he becomes an ad-
ministrator, which will involve his learning new basic lessons,
especially in the task of plain, undelegatable leadership.
I am astonished at my hardihood in having agreed to talk to
a gathering of distinguished headmasters about anything,
let alone about what goes on in a school. My credentials,
such as they are, certainly do include having been a
schoolboy
myself,
and having had a practising schoolmistress for
a spouse these twenty years. But perhaps of more interest, at
any rate to you, is the fact that for some five years I have been
working in the Australian Administrative Staff College, whose
object is to encourage excellence in administration in all walks
of the community's life. In the College we have access to the
results of a great deal of the work which is going on in the study
of administration, and we ourselves are we hope making some
contribution to that study. It is this experience in the College
of which I wish to try and take advantage in speaking to you.
During the last sixty or seventy years the scholars of admin-
istration have looked very thoroughly at the notion of an organi-
sation, and the conditions needed for its healthy growth. Most
of this enquiry has concerned business and government organi-
sations, and it is I think somewhat surprising that so little work
MR. MAURICE BROWN, at present Registrar of the Australian Administra-
tive Staff College at Mt. Eliza. Victoria, will shortly succeed Sir Ragnar Garrett
as Principal of the College. He has written several articles on administration
and has had wide experience in the field, notably as Registrar of the University
of Malaya. Mr. Brown is a graduate in law of the University of Melbourne.
During 1961 he visited the U.S.A. with the assistance of a Travel Grant from
the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
To continue reading
Request your trial