Strategic Cost Management - Education Sector in Victoria - Assessment Answer

Strategic Cost Management Assignment

Assignment Task

Overview about education sector in victoria

*Mentioned categories under it (Ex- early childhood, higher education etc…..)

(We are mainly focusing on early childhood centers and schools is assignment)

*Discuss about details like policies, purpose, mission, goals, objectives, responsibility, employees ,school holidays, bulling and wellbeing, safety, special educational programs,number of schools and early childhood centers in vic

*discuss financial and non-financial impacts of these departments

* define what is strategic management

• Discuss why strategy was introduced for these 02 sectors. Also strategic techniques
• Discuss main strategies which match for these 02 sectors (ex-: operational, functional)
• Discuss about pre planning, implement, development, evaluation and measurement of strategy (use more than 10 resources) (budget, business journals, the age, financial review,Herald sun etc….)
• Prevalence of strategy

Strategic Cost Management

Introduction

The education sector in Victoria has an excellent reputation for over the years with a large team of qualified teachers who teach the students from a diversified school curriculum. Students from this regions come from different backgrounds even though the curriculum brings the best from each student (Morli 2015 pp 15). The Australian government has also made a rule that education is compulsory for children between six years to seventeen years which makes a total of 13 years of schooling. However, most schools are co-educational though there are a few schools who have single gender.

The government has also implemented a rule that school days should be between Mondays to Fridays with the interchanging of classes to create room for the conducive education system. The primary teaching approach in Victorian schools mainly focuses on the students which in return they have better academic results and enjoy their time in school. It is s requirement for every teacher to have a degree qualification in the field which they are teaching and have to be assessed and supervised by practicum placement program which is also known as the teaching rounds. The manager of the school is the principle who should be competent in management skills and manages the school through the education program (Carlson 2015 pp 12).

However, the schools also have councils with the communities, staff and the parents which have to meet and come up with the best strategies on how to manage the school at its best. Therefore excellent facilities suitable for both the students, teachers and the staff to improve learning process is the main feature of the Victorian government schools. It is a must for every school to have facilities for sports and recreational centres with purpose built learning (Cadez 2015 pp 22). Every early childhood centres should have computer laboratories due to a range of state and federal government programs aimed at improving computer literacy in schools.

According to Yenipinar (2015 pp 45) strategic management in the education system is a very vital role in the administration. A school should have a shared vision, mission statement and the ultimate function of the management which should ensure that the vision and mission are implemented to improve the learning standards in teaching and learning. There are strategies which are set to make sure that Victorians achieve their learning objectives and utilise the full benefits of early childhood education. According to their vision them what Victoria to be a state rich in culture, knowledge, and experience with an inclusive of respect though their learning and development journey. The department of education in conjunction with the Victorian government set out a ten-year vision which strategies on significant actions to be achieved. They what to deliver excellent learning for every child through education regardless of the background, place or circumstances.

However, there have been many partnerships which have been set up to achieve the principle of self-determination and develop the education systems. The Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated with the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency and Victorian Community Controlled Health Organisation through this partnerships the community will have a foundation of governance in education. To achieve the vision, there are various steps which will also need to be taken (Bryson, 2015 pp 102).

• There have to be created a positive climate for education and growth where the services will demonstrate the highest levels of respect. The children need to feel the sense of belonging and confidence in with their identity with education.
• When the community is involved in learning and development through the partnerships and collaboration, there will be development hence finding innovative ways of improving the communities.

• They also want to build a culture of professionalism in the education leadership where education will be developed and enhanced.
• The partnership will promote excellence in learning especially in early childhood so that.

• The young children are in the track of their education, health, and development in preparation for future life.
• The children to engage fully in the education so that they gain the required knowledge to pass them through the 12 years and it equivalent.
• Help the children to transit successfully into further scholarships, jobs and any other opportunities that may come their way.

The government in conjunction with the ministry of education have also introduced the free kindergarten programs. In kindergarten which is part of the early childhood where young children are taught on how to be conversant with language, development, and self-confidence. According to statistics which were done by (Johnsen, 2015 pp 49), they show that early development of young children prepares the children for the future education and development which impacts the children positively later in life. The program of free early childhood has increased to 15 hours to enable early start kindergarten to be offered in mixed age. However, successful management of the schools is the responsibility of the shared responsibilities of the distributed leadership.

Non-Financial impacts

Nonfinancial impacts are used in Victorian schools in motivating the students, teachers, and the community. Non-financial impacts are not monetary items. However, the government understands the importance of non-financial impacts whereby they have introduced free early childhood education for children in the kindergartens. Free education has encouraged the community to enrol their children in this system. However, the school's management also have realised the importance of non-financial impacts by having each school with recreational facilities which motivate the children to study hard. The teachers also benefit from non-financial impact by being provided with free housing allowances, entertainment allowances and annual leave days which every teacher will have to utilise (Golda & Holodynski, 2015 pp 79).

Financial impacts

Most of the economic results mostly benefit the schools through government and the teachers who are employed by the schools. The government of Australia gives the schools the finances of paying the teachers and facilitation of the free education programs in kindergartens. However, the teachers are the primary beneficiary of financial programs because they also have incentive plans. The teachers also benefit with gain sharing where they earn increasing bonuses according to the level of productivity. According to Lambert (2015 pp 43), every employee should also have retirement benefits which should include accumulative provident funds.

According to Ferlie & Ongaro (2015 pp 130), strategic planning is important in schools because they have a mission to succeed in best educational interest. A strategic plan helps a school to develop and define its intended objective and organisational goals. An excellent combination of good planning and communication will ensure that all the stakeholders from the school including the parents, principle, the board members, staff the community in achieving the same goals. For a successful strategic plan, implementation requires good management of budgetary and good resource allocation. However, the strategy was implemented in Victorian schools so that the state and the government inclusive of the schools and community may share their vision, mission, and their values. The strategy enables the team to work towards the same goal. The team should ensure that the program of strategic management advances towards achieving their set objectives within a specified period of time. Strategies are also driven by policy initiatives by the government which the government works together with the other team in development, taxes, and authority.

It is important for the team to ensure that the program is rolled out in a transparent manager so that the team will make sure that a particular direction and how they can improve to achieve the best of the gaol set. Therefore it becomes more complex to achieve the target with all the shareholder of the systems. The strategic techniques were introduced so that they can have a guideline on what to follow and also benchmark their progress within a specified period. Schools should monitor their progress towards the key outcomes, and evaluate where they might need improvement, where they have gone wrong and the remaining part of the strategy. Therefore the shareholders have a clearly set road map to keep them on track and provide directions to the school (Kasahara 2015, pp 24).

Operational strategy

Operational strategy in Victorian schools helps in creating the best in class operations strategy through the integration of the schools and the shareholders in boosting the educational performances, condition and increasing the worthiness of the schools through the raising of financial performances and competitive advantages. It is important to provide a school environment which has a highly interactive and collaborative learning environment, therefore, enabling the schools to reconfigure their operations to boost the overall performance of the school. It is also important for the Victorian state to make tools for design decision to increase efficiency, mitigate any possible risks and expanding their plan to maximise the value for creation (Carlson, 2015 pp 93).

Functional strategy

Functional strategy mainly affects areas of operational management based on individual departments in the schools. Functional strategy helps the Victorian state to deal with the nuts and bolts in the long and short term goals. Functional strategy helps the schools to develop plans and goals through different hierarchy which they are supposed to operate on. Therefore by the development of functional strategy, every group has to set its goals to constitute in achieving the primary purpose of the school and the state. Therefore the school's managements have a particular goal which they are supposed to meet, the community, parents and the students and government (Lambert 2015 pp 31).

Pre-planning, implement, development, evaluation, and measurement of strategy.

It is important for the Victorian state to develop an approach which will be used in the program planning, implementation, and the evaluation will be done for effective continuous quality improvement (Johnsen, 2015, pp 34). Therefore it is important to:

Pre-plan

According to Cadez (2015 pp 100) in this stage, the planners have to identify the main elements of the program in a broader way. A lot of research and statistics is required for this stage because you have to know the places to get the resources, the main shareholder and know the role which they will play. In this stage, it is important to know (Kasahara, 2015 pp 73)

What’s the objective and what will be required to be achieved

• What is the main initiative?
• What are the role of the government, community, schools, children, and the parents?
• What is the intention of the strategy and ow much will it cover
• The pricing strategy and where the money will come from
• What will be the revenue challenges and how will they be handled
• What would be the risks and challenges in achieving the initiative?
• The importance of the initiative.

Implementation

Implementation is the primary objective of a strategy because it changes the plans and the strategies into action which will be used to achieve the goals and targets (Davies, 2016 pp 35). However, this a just a roadmap and does not mean that the actual steps will be achieved though it shows the estimate of what is desired to be obtained (Bryson, 2015 pp 103). There are a few steps which are needed to implement the strategy

Disbandment of the resources

• Creation of strategy policies
• Employment of the policies by the best team
• Making the use of the strategic leadership

Development

In this stage, we put the strategy into action. The teams are on the ground and development begins. In this stage the team analysis the environment, the team and their competency and how they can be improved (Yenipinar, 2015 pp 166).

Evaluation

Evaluation is the assessment of the process. Evaluation is very important in strategy development because it acts as a measurement criterion of the whole strategy and how far it is in achieving the desired results (Johnsen 2015 pp 31). However, this is the final stage of strategic management.

Prevalence strategy

According to Kerry (2014 pp 43), 40 percent of strategies fail either due to lack of enough research, unrealistic goals or even low cost. However, this is an important aspect of strategical management because when the plan fails it is very devastating to the team and the groups which have constituted to it (Singh, 2016, pp 89). However, prevalence can be overcome when first there is adequate research done before the beginning of the program. According to Morli (2015 pp 93), most strategies fail due to lack of appropriate finance because some extra cost may be incurred which may not be planned. It is important to have some surplus revenue for the project just in case they are needed. It is important also to have a qualified team to run the project.