Stakeholders are concerned with school image. A look at the school image of a selected school in Chennai, using the perceptions of male and female respondents

A positive school image is important for all the stakeholders of the school. This case study, is based on a broader study of a high school, with a good reputation, situated in Chennai. It is run by a well known industrial group. The school has on its rolls some 1,000 students ranging in age from 10 to 17. The school is recognized by the local government and has been selected because of its consistently good results in the final school leaving certificate examinations.

For this case study the main groups of respondents are students, parents and teachers of the school. To assess the school image the mean value of each dimension for each group of respondents is found and presented graphically, giving the profile of each image. The resultant line depicts the image of institution. The respondents (gender-wise) were evaluated separately, and the difference in perception of school image becomes apparent.

The data, evidence and perceptions used in this case study were collected during a two day visit to the school. The School Image tool, comprising 40 items was administered to the sample comprising 438 respondents. The dimensions considered in this case study for assessing school image are:

A. Leadership style of Principal , quality of faculty and academic course

B. Students'achievement profile- achievement of current students and success of alumni

C. Infrastructure of the school

D. Parental involvement and cooperation with local community

E. Pastoral care of students

Each dimension had 8 items which gave some insight to the dimension being measured. For example, Items #1,2 and 3 tells us something about Dimension C; Item #32 is a measure of Dimension B and so on.

A Personal data sheet was also attached to get further details of the respondents.

The sample comprised 438 respondents, 107 male and 331 female, 131 were students and 307 adults (teachers and parents inclusive).

The perception of the school was then classified gender- wise and respondent-wise

The sample comprised 438 respondents. The sample is distributed as shown in Table 1.

Table 2 gives us the details of gender-wise perceptions according to the dimensions chosen.

Figure 1 reinforces these findings.

Female respondents have persistently got lower mean scores on the five dimensions than the male respondents. Also the standard deviations are consistently lower for the female respondents indicating that there is less variation among the respondents than the males. This seems to indicate that the perceptions of school image by the females is less prone to variation than the male respondents.

Dimension C – infrastructure – seems to be a key indicator of school image.

Figure 1 indicates that there is a marked difference in perception on the five dimensions of the school’s image between male and female respondents. Female respondents have consistently got a mean less than that of the male respondents. Could this be due to gender bias in the learning environment in our schools? This definitely needs to be looked into in a more refined study.

Implications for further study

• A well planned study for comparing the school image of of competitive schools can be carried out. The image of individual schools in chosen relevant dimensions can be evaluated as well.
• Besides teachers and students, other stakeholders like the general public, inspectors of schools can be included as respondents too.
• It is also necessary to analyse the fact whether the spread out image is really the result of different views of individual groups of respondents while each group of respondents assigns to the institution scores based on a different but "specific"image.