Shared Professional Leadership: In Strengthening the Indicators for School-

Based Management

The Department of Education is pursuing policy reforms under the Basic Education
Sector Reform Agenda to meet the Education for All (EFA) objectives by 2015.
(BESRA). BESRA's Key Reform Thrust 1 (KRT1) is School-Based Management (SBM).
SBM emphasizes the importance of empowering key stakeholders in school
communities so that they can actively participate in the continuous improvement of
schools to achieve higher pupil/student learning outcomes. Tapayan, Ebio, and Bentor
(2016, p.3), “the implementation of school-based management (SBM) is an institutional
method to improve education by transferring decision-making authority from state and
district offices to individual schools” and an integral part of the country’s Basic Education
Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA). The core principle of SBM is that the individuals who
are directly involved in and affected by the operations are the most qualified to
coordinate, administer, and improve the school system. According to Kadtong, Navarro-
Parcon, and Basar-Monir (2016). Therefore, it is crucial to monitor the level of SBM
practice in the schools to provide pertinent technical assistance and/or create
frameworks that will allow for the sustainability and duplicability of current best
practices.

Assessment is crucial because it helps determine where and into which areas of school
management and processes a school and its stakeholders may begin to build, as per
the SBM Scale of Practice. The Assessment Tool for SBM Practices was created as a
result. Shared leadership is seen as a powerful management style to deal with the
increased complexity of today's workplace. It acknowledges that everyone wants to
advance professionally, and that leadership is an essential part of working life. Strong
two-way communication is a requirement for shared leadership. Every member of the
school community must be heard, valued, and respected to practice shared leadership.
Shared leadership refers to “an emergent and dynamic team phenomenon whereby
leadership roles and influence are distributed among team members” (D’Innocenzo et
al., 2016, p. 1968).  The practices that each school uses and implements to involve their
stakeholders in the cycle for them to be updated and involved with the different
activities or programs that the school is providing particularly the School Improvement
Plan. Studies confirm that involvement of multiple stakeholders contribute to a better
management of school and betterment of teaching and learning process (Nicdao, 2018).

D’Innocenzo, L., Mathieu, J. E., & Kukenberger, M. R. (2016). A Meta-Analysis of

Different Forms of Shared Leadership–Team Performance Relations. Journal of
Management, 42(7), 1964–1991. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314525205
Kadtong, M. L., Navarro-Parcon, M., &Basar-Monir, L. (2016). School-Based
Management in the Operations and Performance of Public Elementary Schools.
Proceedings Journal of Education, Psychology and Social Science Research.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3139808

Nicdao, M. F., et al. (2008). Practices of the stakeholders’ involvement in the formulation
of school improvement plan.

Tapayan, H. N., Ebio, F. M., & Bentor, C. T. S. (2016). Impact of school-based

management level of practices among secondary school implementing units on
the K to 12 program implementation in Leyte division, Philippines. International Journal
of Engineering Sciences & Research Technology, 5(5), 558–574.