ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF PRIMARY SCHOOL. BY BODE OLABANJI

INTRODUCTION In our lecture today; we are going to discuss what school means. We have heard or used the word very often but not many people have given deep thought to the meaning of school. We cannot understand and appreciate the concept of organization and administration of primary school without first of all understanding the meaning of school. This, therefore, explains why our point of departure in this lecture is the definition of school .Education and schooling are related.Education is an act that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual.Teachers in educational institution direct the education of pupils and might draw on many subjects including The Meaning of School Schools are regarded as public service institutions. These institutions are not profit oriented but service goal oriented as they work for the realization of common goals of society. Such goals include transmitting of societal values and norms from one generation to another. Every society as well as individuals depend on the services of schools. In other words, schools are places where children learn and acquire traits, which among other things will enable them to discharge certain tasks independently and become useful, productive and contributing members of a given society. These traits acquired by children confer on them some levels of confidence and independence. Writing on independence, Dreeben (1979) noted that it is doing things on one’s own, being self-reliant, accepting personal responsibility for tasks with which under different circumstances, one can expect the assistance of others. Traits such as integrity, honesty and ethical strength are expected to be generated through such processes as family socialization, schooling and contact with a morally proper community. It is on this premise that Hu and Korllos (1995) opined that the most effective mechanism for actualizing social control in a population is the process of moral character. In other words, the expectation are that schools provide a significant function in securing moral commitment within a given population. This was again buttressed by Durkhein (1956:61) when he remarked that education rears the child for the country and secures in the children the essential condition for its own existence. This explains the importance of schools and education in a nation. No nation plays with the education of its citizens. This is because any nation whose schools produce weak citizens is bound to have weak economic, social and political structures. It has not been possible to arrive at a consensus on the role of schools as public service institutions. However, the views of Counts, cited by Nwangwu (2007) on the goals of education which schools aspire to inculcate in the minds of children appear to represent a consensus of purposes of education in a democratic society. These goals are: • Education for individual excellence. • Education for society of equals. • Education for a government of free men. • Education for an economy, of security and plenty. • Education for a civilization of beauty and grandeur. • Education for an enduring civilization. • Education for a world community Because schools are regarded as a social organization, it possesses some features of bureaucracy.