Stakeholders Management in ELT Program

To achieve the goal of an educational program, several components are required to manage well.  Educational management is the administration of an educational system in which a group incorporates human and material resources to supervise, organize, strategize, and enforce processes to carry out an educational system (Bush, 2003). Political leaders, principals, teaching staff, non-teaching staff, administrative personnel, and stakeholder collaboration enrich and improve education.

A stakeholder is a person or institution actively involved in the educational program whose interests may be influenced positively or negatively by the program's implementation or completion. Therefore, the stakeholders play a significant role in managing the educational program. One of the primary concerns for any program manager should be stakeholder management. It refers to maintaining control over relationships with all individuals who are impacted or affected by the educational program to ensure goal achievement (Brown, 2014). Identifying all stakeholders is needed since it is connected with the program and on the supporting projects.

This paper highlights the case at the English Department of The State Institute of Islamic Studies Ponorogo in handling one of the programs, namely "Program Pengalaman Lapangan dan Kependidikan" (PPLK), concerning stakeholder management, possible problems, and proposed solutions.

 

ELT Stakeholder Identification

One of the first steps in project management planning is the identification of stakeholders. Understanding how different stakeholder groups differ in their relevance is critical since they can be benefits or challenges (Chapleo & Simms, 2010). In determining what a stakeholder is, it is important to consider anyone/entities that may fall into two categories: internal and external stakeholders (Paine & McCann, 2009). 

In the case of the English Department of The State Institute of Islamic Studies Ponorogo, the internal stakeholders work within the department system daily and essentially control what goes on there, including principals, teaching staff, non-teaching staff, administrative personnel. Moreover, external stakeholders are those outside the department's day-to-day work who have a strong interest in outcomes but do not directly determine what goes into producing those outcomes, encompassing political leaders, students; alumni; donors; parents; other institutions; accrediting agencies; and non-government organization.

ELT Stakeholder Management: Problems and Resolution 

Stakeholders play an essential role in the ELT department management. They work with the head of the ELT Department to run its program conductively. They are also accountable for achieving the learning outcomes by actively participating in the department's events, services, and initiatives.

One of the English Department programs, "Program Pengalaman Lapangan dan Kependidikan" (PPLK) or real teaching practice program in which English Department cooperate with several educational institutions at Junior and High School level. This program's objective is to provide students with practical teaching strategies, including media through demonstrations, peer-teaching, and microteaching in the actual classroom. The English Department must plan the human resource, financial resources, and information resource requirements to achieve this objective.

Human resource management in this program leads to starting and operating the project. The people in charge of this project's success can be the principal, lecturers, teachers, and principals. The principals must stipulate regulation or standard operating procedure regarding its academic requirement in implementing the PPLK project. The following important matter is budgeting which is concerned with making and implementing decisions on using financial resources to acquire natural resources such as equipment and materials for PPLK socialization and implementation, claims on bank account transfers for principals, lecturers, teachers, and headmasters' honorarium. As the project manager, the head of the English Department must make sure that the PPLK project's information comes to both stakeholders and executors effectively and efficiently. The Web is increasingly used as an information resource during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Therefore, besides inviting the stakeholders to the meeting, information related to the PPLK project must be available on the Web.

In running the project, the Department head cannot avoid facing problems in managing stakeholders due to the various flavours of stakeholder problems. Then, let's focus on several stakeholder types as well as the proposed solution.

The first type is a meddling stakeholder. It is constantly familiarizing himself or herself with decisions, procedures, or meetings where his or her participation is unnecessary (Brown, 2014). For example, one of the principals in the institute steers the project in a new direction. The head of the project must not hinder by meddling stakeholders by establishing and enforcing specific engagement rules when stakeholder participation is needed---inviting stakeholders to see how the project runs as previously designed is essential---asking them to observe the interaction at sampled school as the executor of the project. When stakeholders watch how the head of the project engages with real users, they will understand how the program runs as intended. They will see the same issues.

A poor stakeholder is the following type of stakeholder that we sometimes find in managing the program. He/she is interested in or is affected by the program but does not have a large budget or budget authority (Brown, 2014). In the PPLK project, the headmasters and teachers from selected educational institutions tend to be poor stakeholders. They may play politics to gain influence to protect their position without realizing their role in the PPLK project. They sometimes complain about the low budget, whereas the Ministry of Religious Affairs has already set up budgeting as the more powerful stakeholders. Understanding how the poor stakeholder's interests align or clash with those of the more influential stakeholders is critical because it can predict how they will act in a future project.

In running the program, indecisive stakeholders also are found. They can never make decisions on time or cannot remain committed to previous choices he or she has made (Brown, 2014). When dealing with the indecisive stakeholder, you must establish processes and mechanisms that communicate when a decision is needed and the consequences of not making a decision.

The stakeholders play an essential role in the educational program since they are also responsible for achieving the learning outcomes through their active participation in activities and projects. In handling one of the English Department programs, namely "Program Pengalaman Lapangan dan Kependidikan" (PPLK), the Head of the English Department of The State Institute of Islamic Studies Ponorogo must involve both internal and external stakeholders. In running the project, there is a challenge to face problems and provide the solution in managing stakeholders due to the various flavours of stakeholder problem, such as meddling, poor and indecisive stakeholders. Therefore, addressing the stakeholders' expectations or concerns successfully requires understanding who they are and where they fit in the project's growth and implementation phases.

References

Brown, J. T. (2014). The handbook of program management: How to facilitate project success with optimal program management. McGraw-Hill.

Bush, T. (2003). Theories of educational leadership and management. Sage.

Chapleo, C., & Simms, C. (2010). Stakeholder analysis in higher education: A case study of the University of Portsmouth. Perspectives, 14(1), 12--20.

Paine, S., & McCann, R. (2009). Engaging stakeholders: Including parents and the community to sustain improved reading outcomes. Sustaining Reading First, 6, 1--16.