Thesis Abstract and Dissertation Abstracts

The quest to achieve Education for All (EFA) is fundamentally about assuring that children, youth and adults have gained the knowledge and skills they need to improve their lives and to play a role in building more peaceful and equitable societies. Attempts were made to realize this quest.

School heads and decision makers who are conscious of this have challenged themselves to improve the situation .Changes can be made in three main areas: the management, the organization of the service and its actual operation. These should be their priorities especially in third world countries like Philippines.  They should strive to realize the intent of Total Quality Management (TQM) if they wanted to fast track those changes.

These  changes  are in conformity with  EFA 2015 Goals  “6”  formulated  at the World Education  Forum in Dakar which is to “  improve every aspect of the quality of education and ensure their excellence so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by  all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.”   This is also emphasized in the Early Childhood Care and Development Act or Republic Act No. 8980 signed on December 5, 2000 which is to have a holistic approach to bring about optimum development of        children through convergence of health, nutrition, psychosocial stimulation and early education  programs and services aimed at giving children good health and nutrition, appropriate early education, love and protection from harm at home, centre and in the school. The law also mandates the establishment of coordinating mechanisms at the national and local levels to ensure sustained multi-sectoral collaboration.

Authority to undergo those changes for the purpose of improving the quality of the education system enshrined in Basic Education Act of 2002  (Republic Act 9155) has been transferred to the division and school levels, empowering school principals to do their best in their respective assignment.

To help principals exercise their authority, there is really a need to produce a handbook that will serve as guide in the management of their student services especially   guidance and counselling and library that were found to be the weakest in public schools in the division of Romblon with rewarding and evaluation to be the weakest among the management functions of principals.

The mission of Department of Education is to foster commitment to a culture of excellence in public service with a belief that the most important resource of our country is its people. It is mandated to provide quality basic education that is equitably accessible to all. Thus, it is hoped that this handbook can help our principals acquire procedural knowledge, sharpen their skills and above all, create a favourable atmosphere to the teaching learning process. The Manual is based on the result of the study entitled “ Assessment of  Public Secondary School Principals’ Management Functions and Student Services in a Division: Basis for the Development of a Handbook .”  All components of student services were the subjects of the proposed handbook.

The book illustrates how school principal uses his planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, leading, motivating, evaluating and rewarding functions in ensuring that student services are really contributing to the whole educative process. It also illustrates what specific activities that principal should do to ensure that student services are really contributing to the total development of students. This book affirms that there are other ways in managing student services that are to be maintained if educational system expects effecting and effective delivery of services to students. 

Some of the insights in this handbook might not be applicable to some of the schools in the division of Romblon since the situation in terms of budget differ but at least the principal has been provided with the idea on what good student services are meant to be. It is hoped that this small piece of academic research will help secondary school in other way.

 

This book aims to realize the following development concerns:

1.    To provide school principal with ample knowledge in sharpening their skills on management functions;

2.    To provide school  principal with a reference data about the sound management of student services;

3.    To institutionalize the assessment and improvement of student services, and;

4.    To enhance the efficiency  and  effectiveness of school  heads in observing their functions

 

Total Quality schools apply the principles and practices of Total Quality Management (TQM) to their administrative and instructional functions (Deming, 1993). The paradigm emphasizes total commitment from an organization to seek improvement, including all aspects of the organization and all employees, throughout every function and level. It emphasizes quality process as well as quality results (Bounds et al, 1994).  According to Cohen, et. al. (2008) when introduced in schools, the total quality process usually involves a combination of the following elements:

1.    Understanding Systems and Processes- Education administrators make efforts to understand their school as a system containing many subsystems and processes. To do so, they often will “map” their systems and “flowchart “their processes.  Schools will then strive to improve by redesigning their systems.

2.    Using Data for Decision-making-Employees learn to use data in decision –making. This frequently involves employing statistical methods to understand why processes vary.

3.    Using Problem-solving teams and teamwork- Classroom teams use common problem-solving processes and tools to tackle challenges and improve procedures. Students are often taught to use both methods and tools to improve classroom operations.

4.    Identifying and Understanding customer needs-Schools identify the constituencies they need to satisfy, and attempt to understand their expectations and needs. Schools will develop measurement systems that compare their performance to their constituents’ expectations.

5.    Quality planning- some schools use quality planning processes as a supplement to their strategic planning processes for indentifying and achieving organization-wide goals. This will often involve developing organization-wide quality indicators or scoreboards

 

 

A good principal is the one who is both effective and efficient. A person who possesses  competence, sensitivity and responsiveness to  human concerns and the ability to formulate goals to address them and develop and implement strategies to realize those goals while making the best use of resources ( Lu,  2006). Good principals must also have the ability to set teachers to focus and expand their energies to fulfil the very purpose of the schools (Benning, 1985) as cited by Muello (2002).

Moreover, principals should also possess communication skills and  human skills such   caring attitude , honesty , integrity, truthfulness and respect , visionary, people skills, intelligence, courage, flexibility experience , organizational skills, sense of humour and the ability to create a safe environment  (Yates , 2005) cited by Jones and Rudd (2007). Among these skills, Kouzes and Posner (2002) found out that human skills are extremely important for the effective leader. This can be done if he knows to use both his managerial and leadership skills which can be developed anytime.

Somido (2004) further argues that principal as a good leader should also focus on directing and coordinating the work of group members by providing suggestions and considerations for the well-being of group members and have the skill of emphasizing with each member of the team (Putatunda,  2007). Maxwell (1998) also suggest in his book, the 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player wherein   leaders must take the lead in serving others and trusting others. Today, principals are expected to serve as managers of increasingly multifaceted organizations which they are expected to develop relationships with teachers, parents, students and the community they need continuous training and professional development to accomplish these goals ( Waters, Marzano and McNulty,  2003), (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson and Walstrom, 2004).

Furthermore, studies about administrative style between men and women principals had shown different ways of managing organizations (Embry et al., 2008). A recent meta-analysis completed by Eagly et al., (2003) conclude that women are more likely than men to use interpersonally-oriented and democratic leadership styles. Male leaders are described as more transactional than women and female leaders are viewed as being more transformational. Reports on women's leadership styles in developing countries, indicate that women adopt an “androgynous” style, i.e. a combination of “masculine” and “feminine” styles, which is driven by strong male-dominated values coupled with women's own tendencies and needs (Oplatka, 2006). Groves (2005) found out that  female leaders naturally scored higher on social and emotional skills and therefore obtained higher rating for charismatic leadership. But then again, women who are modest will appear less competent Managers should recognize that the global market is so competitive and as a result, a traditional way of instructing subordinates to work will no longer be effective (Awad and Ghaziri, 2004). 

To attain success in all educational endeavours, principal should adopt participative leadership which involves consultation, encouragement and facilitation between the leaders and subordinates in making a decision (Daft, 2005) and (Yukl, 2006). Given the notion that workforce are more knowledgeable and are equipped with relevant skills, subordinates would prefer managers who would give them the opportunity to be heard. Instead of suppressing the disagreement to appease their superior as done previously, the new generation of workers would definitely want to have a part to play in decision making.

Lastly, Kouzes and Posner (1995) posit   that dedicated followers consistently cited four characteristics describing leaders: honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent. The first three traits clearly have far more to do with character than with job skills.

 

The following recommended responsibilities to upgrade the management functions of public secondary principals are based on the result of the study. Status of Management Functions of Public  Secondary Schools in the Division of Romblon

 

Fig. 1:  Graph shows the general perceptions of division program supervisors, principals, teachers and students on the status  of management functions of principals. It shows that for them public secondary principals  were  very strong  in planning, motivating and leading    but weak in evaluating and rewarding and since average mean exhibited gaps from the Total Quality Assurance of “ 5” there is still a need to improve such management functions.

 

 

Planning is a logical thinking through goals and making the decisions to what needs to be accomplished in order to reach the organizations’ objectives (Batemen and Snell, 2007).  Barret (2003)  puts   it as deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year over the next five years, etc.) and generating plans for action.  In school, the most popular concept of planning is School Improvement Plan (SIP) which has been mandated in DepEd Memo No. 259, s. 2010. The content of the SIP are physical facilities, classrooms, workshop, toilet and bath, buildings, library, medical/dental, laboratories, guidance, school furniture and non-instructional programs and projects. Specifically, in planning school heads are encouraged to do the following:

 

1.    Review and clarify school’s vision, mission, goals and objectives.

2.    See to it that plan is understood by all those involved in the project.

3.    Identify the best project methodology.

4.    Identify the needed resources to complete it.

5.    State the period covered by the project.

6.    Involve project leaders in the whole duration of planning.

7.    Encourage all team members to work towards one team philosophy.

8.    Identify what resources are critical to the project completion.

9.    Forecast problems and take corrective action as early as possible to minimize their effect on the project.

10.Provide early warning on potential problems and enable proactive not reactive action to be taken

11.Provide higher authority with up to date information.

12.Review the plan from time- to -time as necessary

13.See to it that there is written historical data for future planning.

 

 

 

Budgeting is a device for managerial control (Zulueta, de Lara and Nebres, 1999). It is also a forecast of expenditures and revenues for a specific period of time. As a planning document, a budget enables businesses, government, private