Discussion about levels of education administration may have different approaches. This approach is made according to the perspective of levels. The first analysis might be related to different levels of education of one country. For instance, it is known that Pakistan has the following levels:
- Pre-primary or pre-school education.
- Primary education.
- Secondary education.
- Post secondary education and,
- Tertiary education.
If it is necessary to offer an opinion about how these levels and education administration are related. It would be necessary to evaluate what requirements educational administration. They need to hold to manage and control such levels. In this sense, school administrators are found at each level of education. For primary or pre-school education, requirements might be less certificates and training than upper levels.
As the educational level increases, it also increases the level of certification that administrators must have. It would be an ideal situation and developed countries are closer to this scene than developing countries. In these countries, lack of planning and economic incentives, corruption, gap between poor and rich and women discrimination, among others, prevent that all levels of education are managed by the most competent professionals according to their training. Also the hiring processes are highly politicized and quality of the educational system tends to suffer.
How the Educational Administration is Organized
The second analysis might be related to how the educational administration is organized according to the political organization of the territory in each country. In general, countries may organize themselves into cities, states, district, departments, villages or provinces. This classification and its names may vary but it is always clear that there is a hierarchy. According to each division, competencies and attributions are identified and pointed out and levels of educational administration are created.
Most of the times there is a high level of administration in charge of planning and lower levels are in charge of applying all the policies and teaching methods in the practice. The distribution also may vary depending of the type of strategies of management in effect such as democratic, autocratic, real or nominal.
Level of the Administrative Task that Every Educational Administrator
The third analysis could be the level of the administrative task that every educational administrator can take. Despite of being of charge of the administration, not all the administrators need to control every single phase of the whole system. All the activities for planning, organizing, making policies, directing, coordinating, supervising, controlling and evaluating are usually distributed according to the level of the hierarchy of each administrator.
It is frequent that that planning and organizing are part of central levels, but execution of those plans and policies are at a level closer to reality and every day activities with students. Despite of all the levels found in educational administration, it has been recognized that it is important to have specific skills related to management. Although teachers, students and any other person in the educative community might be aware of the problems and needs in education, the broader point of view from an administrator is what makes the difference.
An educational administrator put materials and human pieces together and make them function toward the objectives. They become a central piece and a necessary instance for everyone involved. The management strategy is developed by those administrators and all the activities gravitate around their strategy. They are a key part of the quality of the results.