Managing Educational Institutions: Leadership and Management Models in Perspective

Education and training aim to equip people with knowledge, expertise, skills, and/or competencies required in particular occupations in the labour market. Education creates knowledge, and training provides skills. With respect to the labour market, education is considered a service. In developing countries, it is mostly a public good or service since, largely, only government can provide such a service to the population. With respect to the nature of mass consumption, educational administration and educational management are very distinct subjects. Based on general management principles, scholars have argued that leaders lead while managers manage. However, this is generally applicable to industry, commerce and business, and not to education. In other words, the nature and extent of education and training together with the complexity of administration and management remain an area of academic discourse. This article pursues these issues, presents educational and leadership models, and concludes that Southern African Ministries of Education and educational institutions have failed to leverage these management models in order to implement the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol on education effectively