Structural Pathology of Higher Education System in Executing its Five-Year Development Plans and Proposing Suitable Strategies
Subject Areas : Research in Curriculum PlanningMostafa Ejtehadi 1 , Rasol Davoudi 2
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Abstract The main purpose of this research is to study the structural obstacles in the higher education system in executing its development plans to suggest suitable strategies. To achieve this purpose, the opinions of three groups were studied including the senior managers in government, the figures and experts in the field of planning and management, and administrative managers and employees. The last two groups were selected using judgment-sampling method. The research method was "applied research" in terms of purpose and so it was "content analysis", "survey research", and "correlational research" in terms of data collecting method. In addition to the review of the related literature, the desired data was gathered by analyzing the interview transcription of the senior managers as well as questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data and draw conclusions. According the findings, the obstacles to executing the development plans in the higher education system originate from its functional structure. The obstacles include: the lack of conformity between the structure and the particulars of the development plans, between the structure and the environment in which the plans carried out, and between the structure and the plans goals, which all resulted from functional structure of higher education system and its limits. Finally three strategies are proposed to overcome the structural obstacles to executing the development plans in the higher education sector. In order of importance, these strategies include participative culture, systematic or synthetic management, and matrix structure. On the basis of regression model, the proposed strategies have correlation with each other and play an effective role in removing the obstacles.
