GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE DIGITAL ERA OF THE THAWARAWADEE SCHOOL CLUSTER UNDER THE BANGKOK PRIMARY EDUCATION SERVICE AREA OFFICE

Abstract

Academic administration is the main mission of educational institutions in enhancing the quality of teaching and learning management and developing learners in accordance with educational standards and the context of society in the digital era. However, from the implementation of digital policies of the Thawarawadee School Cluster under the Bangkok Primary Educational Service Area Office, it was found that schools still face limitations in personnel readiness, infrastructure, information technology, and the use of systematic data to support decision-making. As a result, academic administration in the digital era has not yet achieved the target of receiving evaluation results at the very good level (mean score 4.50–5.00) according to the five-level rating scale criteria.The objectives of this research were: 1) to study the level of academic administration in the digital era of the Thawarawadee School Cluster under the Bangkok Primary Education Service Area Office, and 2) to propose guidelines for academic administration in the digital era that are appropriate to the context of the school cluster.  A mixed-methods research design was employed. Quantitative data were collected from 196 school administrators and teachers using a questionnaire and analyzed by mean and standard deviation. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five school administrators and analyzed using content analysis.  The research results revealed that: 1) the overall level of academic administration in the digital era of the Thawarawadee School Cluster was at a high level, which was still lower than the very good level target that had been set; and 2) the qualitative analysis reflected that the major limitations included the imbalance of resources in terms of personnel, budget, technology, and management processes. The knowledge obtained from this research was the guidelines for academic administration in the digital era integrating system-based management, knowledge management, and the 4M’s resource framework, synthesized into six practices to enhance the quality of academic administration in order to achieve the target according to the five-level rating scale criteria.