Challenges to Educational Leadership in the Twenty First Century

The inaccurate and unnatural educational spread has conjured an unimaginable value crisis where humane concerns seem lost in the indomitable pace of material progress.

The educational leadership of the day is mired in the pursuit of self denying educational content of ineffective patterns through redundant technology. The goals of the learner are defined by those who have little or no knowledge of the inequitable distribution of opportunities and resources over the vast spread of each province – no need to refer to larger units like nation states or continents. The more defying the situation, the stronger is the challenge to the educational leadership of the 21st century. The more daunting the path, the more resilient should the educational leadership become in order to accommodate the demands of the day  yet achieve its ethical end in the right manner at the right pace.
Growth and development of contrasting terrains cannot be measured by the same scale. The world is an expanse of multi ethnic and diversified socio-cultural fabric. Numerous situations have projected canyon divides in methods, directions and pace of growth and development in the various sections of the widespread world populace. Educational leadership faces the challenge of converting the world order into a progressive pattern where proportional achievement is never circumvented and the less privileged are acquire the ability to step up into the realm of the privileged. The plight of the world nationals ravaged by poverty and terror is testimony to the failure – if not complete at least partial – of the world education order. Educational leaders of the day need to take the evil head on and eradicate it.
Unfortunately while the basics of education aim at affecting the huge mass that remains away from the central hub of 21st century hype, the tenets of planning and the methodologies of implementation are moulded by those who have had no interaction with the local aspiration of the yonder aspirant etched in the confines of his domain and incapacitated to take on the outside world because of faulty educational planning. The task of the educational leaders is to rectify the flaw and incorporate in the planning and implementation of educational systems the missing links that do not confront the individual’s identity but supplement the recognition of the self and lead to acceptance of others as well.
Educational leadership is perennially confronted with discrepancies in areas like learner specific learning content, educator specific training, society specific evaluation norms and demand specific learning environment. The call of the day is to ensure that education helps orient the basics of the human fabric in its original shape with powerful humane colours and involves individuals in recasting the abilities of all.
Instead of any appreciable blend, the focus of the learning material is either around international demands or local requirements. The reference is towards the provincial, national and international boards of education. In the provincial setup, the content is so micro that it leaves little scope for nurturing a global competitor. The national layout has its own spread incoherent with the multi ethnic society of large nations. Hence, the learning material is effective only in propagating the progress of groups that have remained close to the urbane and the cosmopolitan. Those at the periphery of this limited concoct are always disadvantaged and hardly ever proceed towards matching their privileged cousins. It is expected of the educational leaders that they work towards the benefit of the disadvantaged and ensure the path that places them at par with others, of course over a time period, but the period be defined.
In the same context we must appreciate that education is a genuine tool necessary for globalization. But knowledge of the yonder shall have little sense to make if the association with the near is not complete. The international plan of education varies all over the global academic graph and predominantly caters to migrants or aspirants of migration who are ever willing to sever their roots from their fundamentals. Educational leadership faces the great challenge of setting right the inequality and developing evaluation measures where individuals are judged by their standards and not by those of others. This is not to deny any common mode of the evaluation process but ensuring parity before any such exercise.
There has never been any disenchantment with purpose of education nor has there been ever any confrontation with the end results of the philosophy of education and educational dividends. However, today primary, middle, secondary, senior secondary and higher education continue to face the onslaught of unclear and unfocused bureaucracy and political leadership. Held hostage, education suffers from the tangles of impoverished educational vision and the limitations imposed. The job of educational leaders is to clear the smug of detrimental policies by getting together to ensure that reason in seen and freedom accorded.
The crying need of the hour is to provide goals to individuals along with a variety of educational materials and patterns. Following this it should be left upon the individual educational leader, along with his institutional setup, to strive and achieve what is warranted of him. Besides, educational leadership should be re-ordained to work in the direction of the demands of the modern day. The leadership should be exposed to the requirements of the ever improving modern world and provided with the support to empower learners into versatile individuals of effective reckoning.
The educational leaders need to equip themselves with the technological advancements. The greatest demand of the times is keeping pace with the knowledge boom of the day. Knowledge of the maximum shall help make the right choice and define the selection of the required for the group under care. Adequate empowerment and sufficient freedom with accountability shall help in the advancement of aggressive educational setups and from them shall emerge powerful human beings of tomorrows. Such knowledge also fosters the required zeal towards purposeful pursuits and helps the leader to lead his team into the realms of contented achievements.
The best practices of the teacher taught relationship can be invoked only if flexibility in time period and course content is given to the educator and the learner. In addition to some compulsory fundamentals, it should be left upon the will of the learner guided by the teacher to decide upon the learning content. It may sound very haphazard to evaluators who gauge the intelligence quotient by the percentage in academic progress manual. Remember, learning is relative only to the self it is not at all a comparative factor, hence all comparisons and all comparison in learning should be thwarted if we desire to create a learned society. Educational leadership should understand and practice this basic principle.
Let us not confuse learning or education with the successes or failures in competitions. The modern society is starved of values and continuously aspires towards material progress because of inadequate, insufficient and incomplete education. These areas need to be allotted solely to the ability of the educational leader and certainly the right genre of learners shall be churned out of the platonic pursuits in education.
Inter institutional collaboration and exchanges at all levels – that incorporates learners, educators and learning resources can facilitate sustained and meaningful growth and empower the strive towards change. Freedom, know-how, technological support, exposure, interaction, social status and faith shall ensure that educational leadership returns more than it is given. Educational leaders must ensure that they have their due.
The true liberal education for internationalism shall then emerge and lay the foundation of global society. Educational leadership of the 21st century should be poised to take on the challenges.