Managerial Strategies for Education Quality of Small-Scaled Primary Schools According to the Student Focus Concept

Abstract

This research was aimed to study the effectiveness of managerial strategies according to the concept of Student Focus, to analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of school management and sequentially provided strategic development towards school managerial capacity. This research employed mixed research methods. Quantitatively, the research relied on sampling, which consisted of 124 respondents from 50 small-scaled schools in rural areas. Those schools were under the management of the Office of the Buriram Primary Educational Service Area. Instruments for collecting the data were set of questionnaires and evaluation forms, which employed statistical analyses in terms of frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and PNI modified index value. Qualitatively, the sampling included school board members from two small-scaled Granted Royal Award schools, and two small-scaled schools whose ‘Excellent’ quality level was approved and evaluated by the Office of National Education Standards and Quality Assessment, and nine experts. Following the data analyses, the findings revealed that the managerial effectiveness of the small-scaled schools in rural areas was generally at a High level (=4.02 out of 5.00). In other words, managerial strategies, which were used in managing the small-scaled schools in rural areas to improve the quality of education according to the Student Focus, consisted of four strategies and 36 processing methods. Building Learning Network corresponded to strategy 1. Effective Development of Budget Management corresponded to strategy 2. Developing competencies of Teachers and Staff corresponded to strategy 3. And, finally, Developing Sustainable Learning Centers answers to strategy 4.