Tan Kin Lian's Blog: School should not be a business

Thursday, July 17, 2008

School should not be a business

The head of a junior college has the title of Principal and CEO. Why should a school be treated as a business, and to have the head carry the title of CEO?

It will be better for our soceity, if a head of a school is the principal and is not a CEO. The school should have the aim of educating students at a specified cost per student, and not be runned as a business to maximise the surplus or to reduce the cost of education (as this can be done by reducing the quality of the teaching).

11 comments:

Everlearning said...: I support your statement! Schools to run independently, to reward teachers according to the results performed by the students, and to add stress to the students to produce excellent grades for their schools are detrimental to the quality of teaching. Learning should be enjoyable, enriching and educational. It should never be equated to economic growth or running a business. A good government would promote the true value of education for its citizen and make every possible way for them to enrol in their local universities than having many to look outside Singapore to further their education.; July 17, 2008 9:20 AM
Crafty Craken said...: I hope that the title is actually "Principal and CEO" and not "Principle" ;-)

But I agree, the CEO title is a bit ridiculous. I think it's just a title grab.; July 17, 2008 11:32 AM
Victor Foo said...: Yes. You are absolutely correct and I believe this should goes similarly to those government statutory boards, for example : Housing and Development Board ( HDB ) too.

In my opinion, most of these government statutory boards have completely lost the social responsibilities to the society and the peoples; and running as a business instead.; July 17, 2008 11:35 AM
siewkhim said...: I think the title of a "Pincipal" is not fun anymore. These people want to look great in their business card so as to mislead others into believing that he/she is a CEO. In fact he is just a "Chief Education Officer (CEO)"

WE have people who run a one man show at home and called themselves Managing Director (MD).

The title CEO give them a lot of esteem. Look we have, minister, prime minister, senior minister and mentor minister. Later we may have president minister etc.

All these titles make people feel shiok. That all.; July 17, 2008 12:39 PM
Victor Foo said...: How about calling the principal as " School Ambassador " and the teaching staff as " School Champion " instead ?; July 17, 2008 12:52 PM
hanglian said...: In order to preserve the Chinese tradition, we should have Grand Minister, Great Grand Minister...etc. :D; July 17, 2008 3:15 PM
Wealth Journey said...: Such is the fact of life. Packaging counts.
A title means a lot.

Consider this, people avoid financial advisors or financial planners...
but people don't avoid a personal banker (who get designation like manager, avp, vp, director).

Both are doing basically the same job of financial planning.; July 17, 2008 5:18 PM
Wealth Journey said...: Back to the topic...

I too support the view that Education should not be run like a business.

As it is currently, there is already intense competition among Principal/CEOs trying to outdo each other.
-They introduce more and more "value-added" services that comes at a cost to the students.
-They try to weed out poor students so as not to affect the company's performance.; July 17, 2008 5:36 PM
Weng Mao Fa said...: CEO=China Education Officer or CEO=Canada Education Officer.

JC may have foreigner appointed as Principal soonest.

What is the principle behind? Look at the so called "Restructured Hospital" (public hospital in actual) running like business enterprise , you should not supprised with the movement!

Later, we may have "Restructured Army Force" since so many of you not happy of NS and not enough baby boy to become army?!; July 17, 2008 6:44 PM
zhummmeng said...: You already have restructured bonus recently. Wonder what are other things can be restructured?
Ya, it is time to restructure insurance agents' commission.
(this includes agents disguised as consultants)
1.Those who push and peddle products and fill up forms get 5%.
2.Those who push but pretend to advise by filling up many forms get 7.5%%
3.Those who advise and implement get 40
4.Those who advise only get 50%.

5. Those who fill up forms only get the sack.
6. Those who fill up on line forms also get the sack.
7. Those who read the features and benefits in the brochures to the customers also get the sack.
5&6&7 they come to the wrong business. They should be petition writers or computer product demonstrators or tour guides.
Do you think this restructuring is fair?; July 18, 2008 12:20 AM
Unknown said...: This island-state is very pro-business for many years. Almost anything and everything spent or budgetted should have justification tangibly. So perhaps education institutions are no different when pro-business environment evolves into the lifestyle of people.
Remember the book by Robert Kiyosaki 'Rich dad, Poor dad', school should start to educate students on business and finance, and in my opinion, as long as education values are upheld and taught, it may not be bad.; July 18, 2008 1:32 PM