Importance for School Records | Scope of School Records |Kinds of Records

 

Describe the scope, importance, and kinds of school records.

Course: Educational Leadership and Management

Course Code 8605

Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment

ANSWER

Importance for School Records

Every institution that is permanently organized should maintain certain records from which its origin, growth, and development, its condition and circumstances at various periods, its aims, its aspirations and achievements, and its efficiency and usefulness can be clearly known and estimated. This is also true for a school that is a permanent public institution. This school is answerable to several bodies for its effective functioning. The parents in the first place, it is responsible for the proper training and instructions for their children. They pay fees, and for some of them it is considerable sacrifice; and even in cases where education is free; they pay for their children's education indirectly through rates, cusses, and general taxation. At any rate, they are deprived of their children’s services at home or of their assistance in earning a livelihood. To society, of which the school is an organized agency, it has to render an account as to how it discharges its trust of preparing its needs for the school's future members.

The central or local government, which maintains the school or shares the costs of its maintenance, whatever the case may be, has to be satisfied that the maintenance costs incurred or the grants paid out of public funds have been applied to appropriate purposes and that efficient conditions of work are provided in the school. Lastly, the management and staff owe it to the pupils to know them, individually, to watch their progress in studies carefully and systematically, to ascertain and appraise their general attainments and capacities and properly to condition their conduct and general behavior.  The observation and study of the pupils from day to day and from year to year is an id in the school’s endeavor to help forward in the desired direction of their individual and collective development.

For the school may collect and furnish adequate information to all the parties concerned or interested in its proper functioning and may make the best use of the information thus collected for the furtherance of its own aims and purposes, complete and systematic records must be maintained. In the light of these records, pupils’ careers are directed and a better adjustment is brought about between them and their work, and thereby the true ends of democratic education are served. It is with the help of these records that reports to parents regarding the progress, merits, and shortcomings of their children are sent, and the parents' cooperation in the school’s endeavor is enlisted. Further, these records are necessary for furnishing to the State or local educational authorities facts and figures, called “returns,”  from which the present condition of the school is known, and from which also the educational progress and needs for particular localities, and even of the state as a whole, are judged, and based on which lines of future development and expansion are determined.

Scope of School Records

These records, if they are to be of real value, should be full and complete in detail.

At the same time, they should be maintained in such a way that the minimum of clerical work is involved. At any rate, they should not take so much of the headmaster’s time as it will hamper his the discharge of his other duties relating to class teaching and the organization and supervision of school activities. Another essential requirement for school records is the test of the honesty of those who have to maintain them. Accuracy is ensured to a great extent by the promptness of entries in the records are important documents-in fact, they are the most valuable part of school equipment-they should always be available on the school premises and kept in a safe place under lock and key. They should not on any account be removed from the school. Given the failure to observe this rule in practice, some educational authorities have thought it necessary to issue instructions that not only teachers follow but even inspecting officers should not remove records from the school premises for the purpose of security, and not even the Visitor’s hook.

From an analysis of the records maintained in representative high schools in the different parts of the country, it was found that they were designed to serve five purposes. These are:

 1)  To assist in guidance, including classification and placement of pupils.

(2) To improve classroom teaching methods by giving the teacher information regarding the individual differences of pupils.

 (3) To assist, in educational research.

(4) To meet requirements of, and provide the basis for, reports 19 state and local authorities.

(5) To motivate pupils' work. Of these, records serving the first two purposes are considered to be of primary importance as concerned with the work carried on in the school.

Kinds of Records to be Maintained

Administratively, the records that have been maintained in secondary schools are broadly under the following heads; General, Financial, Educational, and those relating to equipment. The list of records to be maintained in a secondary school as given below may appear formidable; and, indeed, in many schools, all these records may not be necessary. The criterion for the adoption of any record is whether it serves any useful purpose in making the management of the school more effective. A characteristic weakness of school administration is the recording of data that is without any purpose by making a fetish of maintaining thorough and exhaustive records covering every school activity without realizing that they do not merit the time and labor spent on them. Careful discrimination between what is really incessant and S% which h really dispensable should be made if the school office is a lot to become a storehouse of information of little value in either making the school work effective or helping educational authorities in the planning of educational reform and development.  Approval of the inspecting officers is, however, necessary for the selection of the records to be maintained in the school.

A.  General

1.  Calendar

2.  Log Book

3.  Visitor’s Book

4.  Service Registers

5.  Register of Loans of Buildings

6.  Order and Circulars of the Educational Authority

7.  Staff Leave Register

8.  Memo Book

9.  “From” and “to” Registers

10.  Local Delivery Book

 

B.  Financial

1.  Acquaintance Roll

2.  Contingent Order Book

3.  Contingency Register

4.  Register of Fee Collections

5.  Abstract Register of Fees

6.  Register of Receipt & Expenditure (Games)

7.  Register of Receipts and Expenditure (Union)

8.  Bill Register

9.  Register of Donations (for private schools only)

10.  Register of Scholarships

11.  Practical Arts Section Bill Book

12.  Practical Arts Section Order Book

 

C.  Educational

1.  Pupils’ Attendance Register

2.  Teachers’ Attendance Book

3.  Class Time-Tables

4.  Teachers’ Time-Tables

5.  General Time-Tables

6.  Teacher’s Monthly Programme of Work

7.  Pupils’ Progress Record

8.  School Tests Records

9.  Headmaster’s Supervision Register

10.  Admission Register

11.  Transfer Certificate Book

12.  Public Examination Records

 

D.  Equipment

1.  Stock Book of Furniture and School Appliances

2.  Library Catalogue

3.  Accession Register

4.  Library Issue Book

5.  Stationary Issue Book

6.  Stock and Issue of Games Materials

7.  Register of Newspapers and Magazines Received

8.  Register of Supply Slates and Books, etc., Received and Distributed

9.  Register of Articles Manufactured in the Practical Arts Section

10.  Register of Stock of Raw materials for the Practical Arts Section

 

E.  Correspondence

1.  From and “To” Registers

2.  Peon Book

3.  Manual Book

4.  File of Departmental orders and Circulars

5.  Public Examination File

6.  Register of Causal Leave Granted