Over the ages, educators wondered what education is. They went deeper into it and explored it by engaging to understand the process, essentially. So concerned were the teachers about the processes of understanding, per se, and the process of how to educate children in the right manner, with the right content, that they did not have to bother about how to ”manage“ education.

With passage of time, our society could not fulfil the requirement of quintessential teachers which schools placed. This compelled us to find out ways of ”managing“ schools by applying the principles of industrial management to the field of school education too. The shift towards understanding processes by breaking them down into parts at the grosser level helped in applying the industrial model of management.

The approach of looking at organizations from the perspective of Management Strategy, Structure, Systems and Style (4–S) has been useful since the advent of the industrial age. In the context of schools, we could liken the term strategy with educational intent, philosophy or vision. The four elements interacting with each other, and manifesting in the various processes and functions of the school, do influence the ambience and culture of school significantly. As people form the process, input and output of schools, it seems that management style is more important than the other three. The other three seem to provide the framework. Management style reflects, conveys and communicates what values an institution actually holds and practices.

Apart from setting an example in organizational values, management style, in conjunction with the management structure and systems, has the potential of realizing the educational intent of the school by enabling the required scope for growth of teachers and students.

The state of a school is influenced by the above four elements, apart from innumerable other factors. Being a social organization it is much too subtle for us to as such manage. It seems that we as school leaders, managers and educators do whatever we can and just witness what emerges. State variable analysis endeavours to understand the state of a school through a process of review of its processes. Based on this, SEAMS would be able to work out a Strategic School Development Plan, which will involve both tangible and intangible factors.

The SSDP will be implemented through the available organizational framework by the participating consultant from SEAMS. This will be enabled by appropriate leadership, management and staff learning, development and creativity programs. In all the steps, staff members of the school will be fully involved so that all the processes are sustainable by the school in an intrinsic and self–propelled manner.