School Leadership :the Experience of East and West Districts of Alabel, Division of Sarangani

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

In the context of today's culture, what prevails, as the teaching-learning environment in a particular school is a reflection of the philosophy espoused by the principal. In other words, a transformational principal inspires the members of his organization to become effective and efficient agents of the teaching-learning process whereas a complacent school leader produces indifferent teachers and consequently, a mediocre system. In this study, the researcher investigated the leadership performance of High School Principals in maintaining a conducive teaching-learning environment.

METHODS

A descriptive design was used with the ultimate goal of finding out whether or not there is a significant difference in the responses made by the two groups of respondents in evaluating their principal's performance in the establishment of teaching and learning environment among schools in East and West Alabel District, Division of Sarangani. The profile of the five high school principals, in relation to their beliefs and commitments were utilized as point of reference, being the subject of the study. The 27 high school teachers and 352 students taken from five high schools responded to the questionnaires. Z-test was used for independent samples and results were then interpreted whether or not there was a significant difference in the responses madeby the two groups of respondents.

RESULTS

It was established that the high school principals from the two districts of Alabel were academically qualified to assume the position of school administrator because of their educational attainment and the number of years that they have earned. In addition, it was established that there was no variation in the evaluations made by the teachers and students in relation to the identified indicators on classroom management, in the maintenance of the physical environment, in the provision of student services and in intellectual planning of the learning environment as their responses were verbally described as agree. However, there was a variation in the responses made by the two groups of respondents in the maintenance of a favourable emotional climate in that the group of teachers gave a strongly agree response while the students yielded an Agree response. When the results were subjected to the test of difference. It was found out that the responses of the two groups of respondents had no significant difference.

DISCUSSIONS

The results show that the principal is the chief architect in the school system, drafting the teaching and learning environment. The Department of Education should institutionalize an induction program for school principals as it could help in the professional growth of people who are given a crucial responsibility in the development of school system. Performance appraisal system for public school principal should be enhanced by giving the teachers, students, and other stakeholders in education to share to evaluate their performance. In this way, the principals concerned would be better informed and be guided as to their strengths and weaknesses.