ABSTRACT
Educational administration exists in order to make good teaching possible. The adjective is an important qualification but it does not affect the basic point, that administration is service not mastery. Most teachers first encounter administrators when they apply for their first job: or at least they encounter the administrative machine. The education officer can be an important influence in the aspiring teacher's career, though not perhaps in the same way that some people think. For the most part heads are very good at their jobs, much better than the environment in which they have to work, and the administrator will spend much of his time trying to see that administrative support matches the quality of the education. The education office— schools situation is a classic, opportunity for bad communications: one central base and a large number of outposts, with a number of built-in hazards such as committee and governors' meetings.
