School-Based Management - Awareness, Views, and Challenges

UNIVERSITY OF CALOOCAN CITY Page
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School-Based Management:
Awareness, Views, and Challenges
A Dissertation-by-Article Submitted
To the Faculty of Graduate School
of the University of Caloocan City
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major in
Educational Management
Gina Juanitez-Tolledo
March, 2018
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CERTIFICATE OF RECOMMENDATION
FOR ORAL EXAMINATION
This dissertation entitled SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT:

AWARENESS, VIEWS, AND CHALLENGES prepared and submitted by GINA
J. TOLLEDO in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy, major in Educational Management is recommended for oral
examination.
WARREN A. RAMOS, Ed. D.

Adviser
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APPROVAL SHEET
This Dissertation-by-Article entitled SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT:

AWARENESS, VIEWS, AND CHALLENGES prepared and submitted by GINA
J. TOLLEDO, has been approved by the Committee on Oral Examination with
a grade of __________ on _________________.
FLORENCIA C. DOMINGO, Ph. D. ROGER A. MORALLOS, Ph. D.

Member Member
DIEGO A. AMID, Ph. D. ROSARIO C. DE OCERA, Ed. D.

Member Member
JOEL P. FELICIANO, Ph. D., DPA

Chairman
Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of

Philosophy major in Educational Management.
Comprehensive examination passed.
MELCHOR S. JULIANES, LPT, Ed. D., Ph. D., DPA

Dean, Graduate School
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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the
best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published
or written by another person nor material to which to a substantial extent has
been accepted for award of any other degree or diploma of a university or
other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement is made
in the text.
I also declare that the intellectual content of this dissertation is the

product of my work, even though I may have received assistance from others
on style, presentation and language expression.
GINA J. TOLLEDO
Researcher
Date:_______________
WARREN A. RAMOS, Ed. D.

Adviser
Date: ______________
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CERTIFICATE OF EDITING
UNIVERSITY OF CALOOCAN CITY

GRADUATE SCHOOL
CALOOCAN, METRO MANILA
This is to certify that I have edited this Doctoral manuscript entitled
School-Based Management: Awareness, Views, and Challenges
Prepared by
GINA J. TOLLEDO
and that I have found it complete and satisfactory with respect to grammar and
composition.
LILIAN B. ENRIQUEZ, Ed. D.

Name of English Editor/Specialist
(Signature above printed name)
_____________________________
Date
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research study is dedicated to those who have served, are serving,
and aspire to serve as School Head in the National Capital Region. Your
commitment, dedication, and passion to serve are essential in attaining quality
education for the future generation.
The completion of this study would not be possible without the genuine
support and encouragement of my family, the panel members, faculty and staff
of University of Caloocan City Graduate School, the DepEd-National Capital
Region Regional Director and the Education Program Supervisors, the
Division Superintendents, the school heads of Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas,
and Valenzuela, and all people who were instrumental for the completion of
this undertaking.
In particular, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the following:

My husband Nof, and my children: Syber Blaise, Syril Benedict and
Stephen Byron;
Dr. Warren A. Ramos, my Dissertation adviser for the persistent

encouragement despite my desire to give up, for his magnanimous
assistance, and for constant follow-up of this study;
Dean of UCC Graduate School: Dr. Joel P. Feliciano, former Dean, and
Dr. Melchor S. Julianes, present Dean, for their encouragements,
recommendations, and approval of this study;
The highly intellectual panel members Dr. Florencia C. Domingo, Dr.

Roger A. Morallos, Dr. Romela M. Cruz, Dr. Marissa B. Feliciano, Dr.
Rosario C. De Ocera, Dr. Diego Amid, and Dr. Mario C. Lucero for their
valuable inputs which guided the evolution of this study.
The Superintendents of SDO Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and

Valenzuela namely Dr. Cecille G. Carandang, Dr. Helen Grace V. Go,
Dr. Meliton P. Zurbano, and Dr. Bejamin D. Samson, who gave
permission to float questionnaire in their respective division;
My fellow school heads in SDO-Caloocan, my DEM A classmates, and

the teaching personnel and staff of Morning Breeze Elementary School
for the inspiration, understanding, and motivation;
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My special words of gratitude to our indefatigable City Mayor Hon.

Oscar G. Malapitan, and the Congressman of the First District of
Caloocan City, Hon. Dale Gonzalo Malapitan for advocating affordable
and quality education to the residents of Caloocan;
To our dear University President Atty. Rene Richard A. Salazar for

equipping the University with an erudite faculty and staff, and world
class facilities that ultimately redound to quality graduates; and
To our ever omniscient Almighty God for His infinite dose of blessings
of good health, wisdom, and understanding; for sending His angels in
the form of friends, classmates, professors, or simply a passer-by; for
everything in me comes from You; for all that I have I offer them to you;
and
To all whom I failed to mention, who encouraged me and keep me

going through this long and arduous journey towards a seemingly impossible
goal, my sincerest appreciation to all of you!
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DEDICATION
I humbly dedicate this dissertation to my husband, Nof Tolledo,

to my children, Syber Blaise, Syril Benedict, and Stephen Byron whom without
their love, understanding and emotional support this goal would remain a
dream.
I also dedicate this output to my parents Candido and Clarita Juanitez

for the life and inspiration; and to my siblings Geraldine, Joel, Jessica, Gil,
Jessel, Gerry, and Jimbert who continuously believe in my capacity to be.
The Researcher
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS DESCRIPTION PAGE
Preliminaries
Title Page i
Recommendation for Oral Examination ii
Approval Sheet iii
Certificate of Originality iv
Certificate of Editing v
Acknowledgement vi
Dedication viii
Table of Contents ix
List of Tables x
List of Figures xi
Chapter 1 Abstract 1
SBM: What’s in a word?
Chapter 2 Status of SBM Practice:
Faces, Phases, and Paces 12
Chapter 3 SBM: Conscientia en Sententia
(Cognizance and Views) 26
Chapter 4 Challenges of SBM:
What for and where do we go from here? 52
Chapter 5 General Discussion 73
Chapter 6 What this paper adds 77
Appendices
Glossary of Terms 79
Survey Questionnaire 81
Summary of Sketches 87
Permit to Conduct Study 102
Letters 103
Curriculum Vitae 122
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LIST OF TABLES
Chapter 2
Table Description Page
1 Gender and Civil Status of CAMANAVA Public 17
Elementary School Heads
2 Age of CAMANAVA Public Elementary School Heads 18
3 Position of CAMANAVA Public Elementary School 18
Heads
4 Status of SBM Practice in CAMANAVA as of January 31, 19
2018
Chapter 3
1 Respondent’s Awareness and Views of CAMANAVA 33
Public Elementary School Heads on SBM in terms
of Leadership and Governance
2 Respondent’s Awareness and Views of CAMANAVA 36
Public Elementary School Heads on SBM in terms
of Curriculum and Instruction
3 Respondent’s Awareness and Views of CAMANAVA
Public Elementary School Heads on SBM in terms 38
of Accountability and Continuous Improvement
4 Respondent’s Awareness and Views of CAMANAVA
Public Elementary School Heads on SBM in terms 40
of Management of Resources
5 Summary of Level of Awareness and Views of 41
CAMANAVA Public Elementary School Heads on
SBM
Chapter 4
1 Challenges in the Implementation of SBM in terms of
Leadership and Governance 62
Curriculum and Instruction 63
Accountability and Continuous Improvement 64
Management of Resources 65
5 Summary of Challenges on the Implementation of 65
School-based Management in CAMANAVA
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LIST OF FIGURES
Chapter 2
Figure Description Page
1 Sketch of School Head 5 19
Chapter 3
29 Dimensions of School-based Management 42
Chapter 6
Figure Description Page
1 Proposed Integrated SBM System Model 78
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Chapter 1
SBM: What’s in a word?
Abstract
School based management (SBM) is a worldwide education reform to

decentralize the decision-making authority from the central office to local
schools. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the status of SBM practice,
the level of awareness and views of SBM implementation, and its challenges
using a survey questionnaire adopted from SBM tool, sketching, and a
researcher-made checklist. The quantitative and qualitative research approach
used purposive sampling in choosing the school divisions of the National
Capital Region, while cluster sampling was used in choosing the respondents.
Thirty-six public elementary school heads were chosen from Caloocan,
Malabon, Navotas, and Valenzuela.
The findings indicated that school heads are Highly Aware in all four
components namely Leadership and Governance, Curriculum and Instruction,
Management of Resources, and Accountability and Continuous Improvement.
The school heads’ views led to the conceptualization of four SBM dimensions
to wit: leading, learning, creating, and valuing. Most schools in Caloocan,
Malabon, Navotas, and Valenzuela belong to Level 1 or the Developing status.
The findings on the challenges of SBM implementation in four

components are generally High Extent. Public schools continue to encounter
challenges such as lack of competent educational managers (x=3.06) and lack
of information and training for school heads (x=2.92) in terms of Leadership
and Governance; absence of contextualized criteria for assessment (x=2.81)
in Curriculum and Instruction; lack of trust among school community (x=3.06)
in Accountability and Continuous Improvement; and insufficient knowledge and
skills of key persons in handling finances (x=2.92) in management of
resources remain a problem.
The researcher highly recommended that the next order of study would
be the hindering factors on SBM, the DOD processes, the level of commitment
of school heads in implementing the SBM, and the correlation between level of
awareness to the personal belief and values orientation of the school heads.
Key words: School-based Management, SBM implementation, SBM challenges

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We must adjust to changing times

and still hold to unchanging principles.
-Jimmy Carter
Introduction
School based management (SBM) is a worldwide education reform

agenda that aims to decentralize the decision-making authority from the
central office to local schools (Bandur, 2012; Winarti, 2011; Cranston, 2002;
Al-Ghefeili, Ghani & Muhamad, 2013).
School-based management is the systematic decentralization to the

school level of authority and responsibility to make decisions on significant
matters related to school operations within a centrally determined framework
of goals, policies, curriculum, standards, and accountability (Caldwell, 2005).
The approach is also sometimes referred to as “self-managing schools,” “site-
based management,” “school autonomy,” or “local management.”(Heyward et
al, 2011)
The shift in paradigm is attributed to the advancement of technology

(Abdullah, DeWitt & Alias, 2013), power and authority (Bandur, 2012; Kwan &
Li, 2015; Carr-Hill et. al, 2016), globalization (Winarti, 2011; Cheng, 2009),
increase in schools’ accountability (Winarti, 2011; Kiragu, King’oina and
Migosi, 2013), curriculum (Bjork, 2009; Bandur, 2012), availability of resources
(Kiragu, King’oina and Migosi, 2013), and change in roles and responsibilities
of principals and teachers (Cranston, 2002).
Looking retrospectively at the history of Philippine educational system,

many initiatives, programs, and reform efforts have been implemented to
unravel these problems. One of these is the implementation of School-Based
Management or SBM as embodied in Republic Act 9155 enacted into law in
2001. SBM is a framework of governance which transfers the power and
authority as well as the resources to the school level on the assumption that
the school heads including teachers, key leaders in the community, parents
know the root and solution to the problem.
School-based management (SBM) is the institutional expression of the

decentralization of education at the grassroots level. It is based on the national
policy of decentralization originally set by Philippine Local Government Code
of 1991 (RA 7160) as a response to the new challenges for sustainable human
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development by enabling local communities to become self-reliant and more

effective partners in the attainment of national goals (SBM Manual, 2006)
In 1999, DECS Order No. 230, further defined decentralization to mean:

1) promotion of school-based management 2) transfer of authority and
decision-making from central and regional offices to division and schools; 3)
sharing educational management responsibilities with other stakeholders such
as the Local Government Units (LGUs), parent-teacher-community association
(PTCAs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); and 4) devolution of
education functions.
With the approval of the five-year Medium-term Philippine Development

Plan for Basic Education, the goals of the education system are stated as
follows: 1) enhancing school holding power; 2) improving school outcomes
and raising quality and academic excellence; 3) enhancing the relevance of
the curriculum; and 4) establishing administrative and management
improvements to gear the bureaucracy for decentralization and modernization.
Its Mission statement declares: We shall decentralize educational
management so that the school becomes the focus for enhancing initiative,
creativity, innovation, and effectiveness. Our efforts at educational quality
improvement shall originate from the school and redound to its own benefit
and that of the community.
Moreover, the enactment of Republic Act 9155 otherwise known as the

Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001, the legal mandate for
decentralization of governance in basic education was finally articulated. It is
clear from the declaration of policy, “The school shall be the heart of the
formal education system”, that the most important change in the governance
of basic education must occur at the level of the school. This explicates that
school-based management is the institutional expression of such change.
To accelerate the SBM Program Implementation Plan, the Department

of Education released the Operations Manual on SBM and its Support
Systems. There were six domains namely School Leadership, Internal
Stakeholders, External Stakeholders, School Improvement Process, Resource
Management, and Performance Accountability. It used a checklist of artifacts
or documents which served as means of verification for SBM practice. The
rating scale followed is 0 for No Evidence; 1 if evidence indicates Developing
structures and mechanisms; 2 if evidence indicates planned practices and
procedures; and 3 if evidence indicates practices and procedures satisfy
quality standards.
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To fast track the attainment of the Education for All (EFA) and
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets by 2015, the Department of
Education (DepEd) through the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda
(BESRA) provided the School-Based Management (SBM) Grants to public
elementary and secondary schools. These funds began in 2006 and will be
continued onwards to support the efforts of schools and the divisions towards
self-improvement. Through continuous school and division improvement
planning, the provision of School-Based Management (SBM) Grant will come
from the General Appropriations Act (GAA) and the Support to Philippine Basic
Education Reforms (SPHERE). (D.O. 55 series of 2008 and 2011; D.O. 41 s.
2010)
Deped Order 64 series of 2012 installed a Quality Assurance System to

ensure delivery of quality basic education. It is a system that requires
coordinated and shared responsibility of all stakeholders of basic schooling to
deliberately bring about quality education. The installation was brought about
by the introduction of policy reforms embodied in the Basic Education Sector
Reform Agenda (BESRA). The objective is to encourage the schools to
engage in the accreditation process after the schools have matured in the
SBM level of practice.
Accreditation is a quality assurance method. Through the accreditation

process, schools are recognized for meeting required quality standards in all
areas of their work: academic programs, teacher support, student services and
more.
To further strengthen the School-Based Management (SBM) practice

and re-emphasize the centrality of the learners and the involvement of
relevant community basic education service delivery, the Department released
DepEd Order No.83 series of 2012. This order embarked on revisiting the
SBM framework, assessment process and tool to improve on already
recognized successful SBM practices across the regions. From six domains,
the tool was revised into four domains namely: Leadership and Governance;
Curriculum and Learning; Management of Resources and Accountability and
Continuous Improvement.
In a study conducted by PETS-QSDS in 2014, most schools in the

Philippines have not gone very far in implementing school-based management
(World Bank Report, 2016). The study collected information on the results of
these self-assessments and found that the majority of elementary and high
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schools reported having put in place only the lowest level of SBM – Level 1.
This means that schools had only a minimum number of mechanisms in place
for community participation and for taking action to improve learning
outcomes. Less than 10 percent of schools reported belong at the highest
level of SBM implementation and, thus, meeting all standards of community
participation and school-based management.
In a study conducted by SEAMEO Innotech Regional Education

Programme (SIREP, 2012) on the implementation of decentralization among
Southeast Asian countries, the major challenges found were the following:
shortage of competent educational managers at the lower levels, inadequate
funding support for decentralization, lack of support and commitment from the
local levels such as resistance from local government units and other
education officials to decentralization. This has resulted to weak collaboration
and coordination between and among educational units at different levels.
World Bank (2016) conducted another assessment and found out that
SBM implementation was low in the Philippines, a small share of school
funding served as discretionary only, SBM implementation was less advanced
and fewer discretionary funds were available that serve poorer communities,
school governing councils were not functioning as they were designed to do,
most schools have accessible transparency board but the information but the
information provided was very limited, hence transparency needs to be
increased.
With these in mind, the researcher has undertaken the challenges or

problems in SBM implementation, so as to provide bases for policy
recommendations, on process of documentary evaluation, and/or on the
structure of SBM evaluation. The result of this study has given a different
perspective if SBM was not responsive to the school’s inimitable set-up, need
revision of the arduous procedure, and thereby help schools reach the apex of
Level III implementation or the PASBE accreditation.
Hence, from the evolving picture of school-based implementation, the

study sought to answer the following questions:
1. What is the status of SBM practice in CAMANAVA public
elementary schools?
2. What is the level of awareness and views of CAMANAVA public
elementary school heads on SBM implementation in terms of?
1.1. Leadership and Governance
1.2. Curriculum and Instruction
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1.3. Accountability and Continuous Improvement

1.4. Management of Resources
3. What are the challenges in implementation of School-based
Management in terms of?
3.1 Leadership and Governance
3.2 Curriculum and Instruction
3.2 Accountability and Continuous Improvement
3.3 Management of Resources
Chapter 2 presented the status of SBM practice among public

elementary schools in the four schools divisions namely Caloocan, Malabon,
Navotas, and Valenzuela. This chapter described how many schools have
attained the maximum level of implementation, how long they have been in
that level and which remain static at Level I. The SBM practice was
interrelated in the interactive and cyclical process of keeping and maintaining
artifacts.
Chapter 3 identified the level of awareness and views of principals in

terms of School Based Management. The level of awareness and views
predict the level of SBM implementation among public elementary schools in
the Division of Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, and Valenzuela.
Chapter 4 focused on the challenges encountered by principals in the

implementation of school-based management. It looked into the extent of
challenges encountered by principal respondents in the implementation in
terms of leadership and governance, curriculum and instruction, accountability
and continuous improvement and management of resources.
Chapter 5 presented a general discussion of the findings of the study

with focus on the essential aspects of the different publishable articles and
other relevant areas that demands further explanation or exploration with the
scope and limitation of the study.
Chapter 6 elaborated on what this research has added as a contribution

to the field of study. It proposed on creating a proposed integrated SBM
system model for a more improved shared leadership and collaboration nexus
towards committing the desired goal, the apex of SBM level.
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Significance of the Study
The results of this study were deemed to have valuable and meaningful
advantages to the following:
Learners. The results of this study would redound to the betterment of

the school-community partnership for better educational outcomes. Learners
benefiting from the sound relationship would be provided with excellent
educational services thereby producing globally-competitive learners.
Policy makers. The research findings might be used as bases for

modifying the present arduous accreditation process and provide a more
responsive tool relevant to the present educational system. The results may
add credence to the idea that the system must be continually studied,
updated, and revised to make it more functional to the school operations and
management. The policy makers would take some improvement measures by
continuously upgrading the SBM assessment tool in aiming for improved
learning outcomes.
Educational Administrators. This study would strengthen the premise

that once the challenges encountered by the principals in implementing SBM
are mitigated, the school has an immense potential in improving access,
governance and operations.
School Heads. The results of this study might guide the principals to
exercise sound administrative and managerial functions in the confluence of
all stakeholders. This study might guide the principal in formulating programs,
projects, and activities to resuscitate the SBM implementation and in crafting
policies to mitigate the challenges encountered in the implementation.
Parents. The results of this study would motivate the parents to

strengthen coordination in school and realize their significant role in the
school-based management.
Local Government Unit. The results of this study would provide the
local government unit an additional resource on the training needs or
networking enhancement in the formulation of capability-building programs for
principals, parents, and the local government.
External Stakeholders. This study reinforces that School-based

Management allows schools to establish linkages, strengthen collaboration,
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and continually maintain partnerships to ensure success of academic

programs, projects and activities.
Researcher. The researcher as school head would improve her

competence not only in school-based management but in the reflective
process of development and completion of her study.
Future researchers. In the continuous effort to beef-up the SBM

implementation, this study could serve as an additional resource for similar or
related studies.
Scope and Delimitation
This study focused on the challenges encountered by the school heads

of Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, and Valenzuela (CAMANAVA) area in the
implementation of Enhanced School-based Management leading to the
PASBE accreditation. It was conducted from October, 2017-February, 2018.
Specifically, it would try to answer the following: the status of E-SBM

practice in CAMANAVA public elementary schools; the level of awareness and
views of school heads on Enhanced SBM implementation, and the challenges
in the implementation of Enhanced School-Based Management in terms of
Leadership and Governance, Curriculum and Learning, Accountability and
Continuous Improvement, and Management of Resources in CAMANAVA
public elementary schools.
These Schools Divisions include Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, and

Valenzuela. The choice of school divisions was done purposively for
convenience reason. The population of the research included school heads of
the public elementary schools. There were two respondents, regardless of the
school size, in each district from each division randomly selected through
cluster random sampling.
In Caloocan, there were seven districts- Aromar, Pobcaran, Tanque,

District I, II, III, and IV; hence, there were 14 respondents. There were five
districts in Malabon, District I-V, hence, 10 respondents were chosen in this
division. Meanwhile, Navotas had two districts I and II. Hence, there would be
4 respondents. Valenzuela had four districts-North, East, Central and South,
hence there would be 8 respondents. This study would have a total of 36
school respondents.
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Methodology
This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative

approaches for the purpose of breadth and depth of understanding and
corroboration (Heyward, et. al, 2011). A survey questionnaire, documentary
review and analysis, sketching, and a checklist will be used to answer SOP
Numbers 1, 2, and 3. To answer SOP number 1, a thematic analysis would be
used. This would be validated through focused group discussions.
The tool was validated by two experts on School-based Management, a

grammarian, and a statistician. To establish internal consistency, Cronbach’s
Alpha was used after pilot testing with over-all reliability coefficient of 0.89
which is equivalent to Acceptable Level. Ten public elementary school heads
were chosen as respondents. Two Principal IV-I, and two Officers-in-Charge
were requested to answer the pilot questionnaire. The final survey
questionnaire was printed after getting the internal consistency of each
indicator.
For the final floating of the instrument, there were two respondents,
regardless of the school size, in each district of each division. They were
randomly selected through cluster sampling. In Caloocan, there were seven
districts; hence, there was a total of 14 respondents. There were five districts
in Malabon, hence there would be 10 respondents in this division. There were
two districts in Navotas hence there would be 4 respondents. Valenzuela has
four districts; thus they had 8 respondents. This study had a total of 36 school
respondents.
The qualitative data collected was transcribed and coded. The coded
data were then refined into patterns and categorized according to some
emerging themes. The qualitative data collected was analyzed in repertory
grid to observe cool and warm analysis. For the reliability and authenticity of
the data collected, sketches were captured without modification and the
responses were presented to the respondents through the process of
debriefing (Dufrene and Young, 2014).
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References:
Abdullah, Nur Ain W.; DeWitt, Dorothy and Alias, Norlidah. (2013). School
Improvement Efforts and Challenges: A Case Study of a Principal
Utilizing Information Communication Tehnology. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences. Vol 103, pp. 791-800
Al-Ghefeili, A.A., Ghani, M.F., & Muhamad, M. (2013). The most important
challenges and difficulties the principals encountered in the
implementation of SBM system in selected schools in Al-Batinah
Governorate, Oman. Global Business and Economics Research
Journal. 2(5): 75-91;
Bandur, Agustinus. (2012). School-based management developments:

challenges and impacts. Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 50
No. 6 pp. 845-873
Björk, Lars G; Blasé, Joseph (2009). The micropolitics of school district

decentralization. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and
Accountability. Vol. 21.31. pp. 95-208.
Carr-Hill, Roy; Caine Rolleston; Schendel, Rebecca. (2016). The effects of

school-based decision-making on educational outcomes in low- and
middle-income contexts. Campbell Systematic Reviews. 12: n/a.
Cheng, Yin Cheong. (2009). Teacher management and educational reforms:

Paradigm shifts. Prospects. 39.1: 69-89.
Cranston, Neil C. (2009). Collaborative decision-making and School-based

management: challenges, rhetoric and reality. Journal of Educational
Inquiry Vol. 2 No. 2
Dufrene, Claudine, Young, Anne. (2014).Successful debriefing — Best

methods to achieve positive learning outcomes: A literature review
Nurse Education Today , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , 372 - 376
Heyward, Mark; Robert Cannon and Sarjono. 2011. Implementing School-

Based Management in Indonesia. RT Press Publication No OP-0006-
1109
Kiragu, Joyce W.; King’oina, John O. and Migosi Joash A. (2013). School-
based Mangement Prospects and Challenges: A Case of Public
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Secondary Schools in Murang’a South District, Kenya. International

Journal of Asian Social Scence. Vol. 3 No. 5 pp. 1166-1179
Kwan, Paula; Li, Benjamin Yuet-man. (2015). Empowerment or impediment?

School governance in the school-based management era in Hong
Kong. Asia Pacific Journal of Education. 35.3 : 319
Winarti, Eny. (2011). School-Based Management: The Challenges of its

Implementation in Indonesia. Orientasi Baru. Vol. 20, No. 1 pp 85-99
A Primer on School-based Management. 2006
School-based Operations Manual. 2006.
DepEd Order No. 230 s. 1999 -
DepEd Order No. 232 s. 2006
DepEd Order No. 83 s. 2012 DepEd Order No. 20 s. 2013
Republic Act 9155 Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001 extracted from
deped.gov.ph/sites/default/files/page/2017/Basic%20Education%20RA
%209155.pdf on September 20, 2017
Republic Act 7160 An Act Providing for a Local Government Code Of

1991extracted from http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1991/10/10/
republic-act-no-7160/ on September 11, 2017
Assessing School-based Management in the Philippines, World Bank Report,

2016
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Chapter 2
Status of School-based Management Practice:

Faces, Phases and Paces
Abstract
School-based management (SBM) in public schools is a mechanism to

decentralize the authorities from the central government to the local level. The
main objective of this study is to assess the current status of SBM practice of
thirty-six participating schools in CAMANAVA area through a checklist.
Purposive sampling was used in choosing the school divisions while cluster
sampling was used in choosing the respondents. Ethical considerations were
strictly observed in gathering the data. The study used quantitative approach
and data gathered were interpreted using frequency counts, percentage and
ranking. The results showed that 47% of the schools in the area belong to
Level 1 or the Developing Stage. The themes called SBM Practices: Faces
(the feature of SBM), Phases (the process of SBM), and Paces (the rate of
SBM) emerged from the respondent’s sketches, and these were placed in a
SBM Continuum
Key Words: School-based Management; SBM Practices; SBM Continuum

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Nobody's going to fix the world for us,

but working together,
making use of technological innovations
and human communities alike,
we might just be able to fix it ourselves.
- Jamais Cascio
Introduction
Monitoring of service quality is the most common are of monitoring with

the common goal of enhancing the level of quality, for better policies, and
system transparency to ensure informed individuals (Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, 2015). But with the underperforming
services and settings, appropriate measures are to be taken for accountability
of public investment as well as for protecting the learners (Jaffer, 2010).
In monitoring, most countries report that they take measures to address

shortcomings such as follow-up inspections (Donnelly, 2015; Sweeney, 2014)),
closure of services in terms of private schools (DO No. 11 s. 2011), and
obligation of management to take training (Ryan, et. al., 2013; Behnke and
Steins, 2017). These mainly focused on structural quality. Several countries
fail to capture the process quality. These cannot be measured through
inspections, thus self-evaluations were used to complement these inspections
(OECD, 2015; Ryan, et. al., 2013).
Schools in this millennial era are increasingly performing in a

decentralized context which leads to a growing influence of accountability
measures in order to guarantee standards in teaching and learning (Altrichter
and Maag Merki 2010). Most countries though have varying views and focus
on monitoring on the different dimensions of decentralization like fiscal,
administrative, federalism and aggregate decentralization (Goel, et. al., 2016)
More so, systems of accountability differ considerably in different

countries. In the United States and Latin America, education services quality is
primarily measured via achievement tests and students’ outcomes (Ryan et al.
2013), Europe and the Pacific region rather draw on external evaluations via
school inspections (Ehren and Honingh 2011; Ryan et al. 2013). Some
European inspection systems (Kemethofer, et. al., 2017) have a long tradition
regarding these accountability measures (England, Wales, Northern Ireland,
and the Netherlands); others have only recently installed these measures
(Germany and Sweden). Basically, the range of inspection systems varies
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from self-evaluation to a combination of both school self-evaluation and

inspection or inspection only.
In the Philippines, monitoring and assessment had been conducted

since the implementation of school-based management in the early 2000
through Republic Act 9155 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2001, vis-
à-vis Schools First Initiative (2005-2010), Basic Education Sector Reform
Agenda (BESRA) 2006-2010, and Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan
1999-2004. These programs promoted decentralization of educational
management so that schools become the foci for enhancing initiatives,
creativity, innovations, and effectiveness (SIREP, 2012).
Since its implementation in 2001, various initiatives had been

implemented. School heads were capacitated to take the lead in providing
students with desired learning competencies. SEAMEO INNOTECH trained
5,000 school heads on instructional leadership through the DepEd EXCELS
Project. The DepEd also created new school head items along with SIP
preparation training. Schools also received support funds to help them bring
about improvements. In 2011, 44,847 schools received SBM grants (NEC,
2014).
More so, DepEd launched a nationwide advocacy campaign that

disseminated basic primers on SBM, school leadership, and school
performance accountability and a manual on the assessment of SBM
practices. Other relevant tasks such as publishing a primer on the school
governing council; putting together an omnibus SBM manual that highlights
SBM as a mechanism for integrating various education inputs and
components like the NCBTS towards enhanced learning; and, developing the
competency standards for school heads were also undertaken (Bautista,
Bernardo, Ocampo, 2010).
Hence, the researcher prompted to conduct a study on the status of

SBM practices which answers the central question of the study- what is the
status of SBM practices in CAMANAVA public elementary schools?
Review of Related Literature
As part of the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) under

its first key reform thrust – Better Schools, almost 97% of school heads were
trained in SBM, 82% of schools had established a School Governing Council,
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and 80% of schools had a School Improvement Plan (NEC, 2014). These
feedbacks prompted DepEd to introduce a tool for schools to carry out their
own assessment of their progress in implementing SBM (DO No. 37, s. 2009).
The outcomes of these assessments resulted to moratorium on the

conduct of SBM assessment DepEd Memorandum dated May 31, 2012 with
the end view of simplifying the processes and assessment tools used by the
schools. This moratorium answered the clamor of the school administrators to
streamline the report requirement at the school level and to address the
diverse typology of the schools.
In November, 2012, DepEd Order 83 s. 2012 was issued containing

the revised SBM framework, assessment process and tool (APAT). The
revision of the assessment tool is corollary to the principles of A Community
and Child-centered Education System (ACCESS) which advances the
principles of shared governance and strong culture of effective and context-
based leadership and management in the delivery of basic education (RA
9155)
The review mission as cited in DepEd Order 83 s. 2012 reported that in

the schools visited, there was a very high level of community involvement and
ownership of schools implementing SBM as evidenced by their awareness of
school concerns and in their contributions towards addressing them. Despite
high level of awareness, there were difficulties in the operationalization of
policies and guidelines at the school level, and difficulty in understanding on
how to make SBM work in terms of improving governance practice and
achieving organizational effectiveness of the schools. Similarly, the school
heads are highly aware of enhanced school-based management in terms of
leadership and governance, curriculum and instruction, accountability and
continuous improvement, and management of resources as revealed in
Chapter 2.
Most schools have not gone very far in implementing school-based

management, albeit small, there was an overall positive effect. (Khattri, Ling
and Jha, 2012; Worldbank Group, 2016). In some areas, the level of SBM
implementation exceeded the minimum standard (Cabardo, 2016), while in
some, an attractive reward and incentive system was viewed as imperative to
SBM implementation (De Guzman, 2006). Teachers also showed awareness
of goals and aims of initiatives, however, contextual factors affected their
implementation process (Jonglai, 2017) In the same way, there was no
significant relationship between the level of empowerment of school heads
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and the extent of SBM implementation and the seriousness of problems met in
SBM implementation (Vicera and Bentor, 2013).
In 2014, the PETS-QSDS study collected information based on self-

assessments and the results yield that the majority of elementary and high
schools had SBM in place but only the lowest level of SBM – Level 1 or
Developing Stage. This means that they had only a minimum number of
arrangements in place for community participation and for taking action to
improve learning outcomes (Worldbank, 2016). However, self-evaluation and
performance management are not well-developed in schools (Sarrico, et. al.,
2012). The level of SBM implementation was found to be at Exceeding the
Minimum Standard. The level of participation of the school stakeholders to the
different school-initiated activities was significantly affected by the level of
SBM implementation (Cabardo, 2016).
After thorough review of existing literature, there was a need to conduct

a follow-up survey with regards to the level of status of SBM practice in
CAMANAVA public elementary schools.
Methods
This study sought to find out the status of SBM practice of the different
public elementary schools in CAMANAVA area. The respondent had to check
the level of SBM practice whether Level 1 or Developing, Level 2 or Maturing,
or Level 3 or Advanced through self-assessment. The purpose of self-
assessment according to DepEd Order No. 83 is to determine the school’s
level of SBM practice through the use of an SBM assessment tool which is
analyzed for evidence using the DOD or document analysis, observation, and
discussion.
The respondents to this study were chosen as to their willingness to

contribute in the study and for the availability of time considering the
multifarious facets of the self-assessment. Ethical considerations (Greaney,
et.al., 2012) such as confidentiality, carefulness, openness, responsible
mentoring, respect for colleagues, and the like were strictly observed in the
conduct of the study.
This study used quantitative method to gather the data. The main data
gathering instrument used in this research was survey checklist on the level of
SBM practice for the school heads. After data collection, the responses were
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coded, tabulated and interpreted using statistical tools such frequency counts,
percentage and ranking.
In addition, qualitative method was used to elicit descriptions of the

status of SBM practice through sketches. The sketches were used to
triangulate with the data gathered from the survey questionnaire.
Results
The respondents considered in this study were the selected public

elementary school heads of Calooocan, Malabon, Navotas, and Valenzuela
area. The following tables present the profile of the principal-respondents.
Table 1
Gender and Civil Status of CAMANAVA
Public Elementary School Heads
GENDER CIVIL STATUS
Area
Male Female Single Married Widow No Data
Division A 3 11 1 13 0 0
Division B 2 8 3 5 0 2
Division C 1 3 1 2 0 1
Division D 3 5 1 5 1 1
Total 9 27 6 25 1 4
Percentage 25 75 16.67 69.44 2.78 11.11
Presented in the Table 1 is the gender and civil status of the

respondents. Majority of the respondents were female, 27 or 75%, while 9 or
25% were male. The result showed that teaching job is dominated by women,
and teaching is generally a women’s work because of the inherent female
qualities that engendered women’s natural parenting roles (Stange, Oyster,
and Loan, 2011). However, this was in contrast to the fact that school
administration is viewed as men’s work because our culture has viewed men
as natural leaders
The table showed that 25 or 69.44% of the school heads were married,
6 or 16.67% were single, 1 or 2.78% was a widow, while 4 or 11.11% did not
state their civil status.
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Table 2
Age of CAMANAVA Public Elementary School Heads
AGE
Area
<40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-60 61-65
Division A 0 1 3 6 4 0
Division B 0 2 2 3 2 0
Division C 0 2 0 2 0 0
Division D 2 2 0 1 3 0
Total 2 7 5 12 9 0
Percentage (100) 5.56 19.44 13.89 33.33 25.00 0.00
Table 2 presented the age of the respondents. Majority of the

respondents belong to old age. Twelve ranged from 51-55 years old and nine
or 25% ranged from 56-60 years. There were 7 or 19.44% respondents
ranged from 41-45 years old, 5 or 13.89 ranged from 46-50 years old, and
only 2 or 5.56% were below 40 years old.
For many organizations, a typical concern lies on the performance of

older workers is the extent that job performance is impaired as they age
(Barling and Cooper, 2008). In a utility perspective, older workers are costly to
the organization as they tend to earn higher salaries but may have reduced
job performance.
Table 3
Position of CAMANAVA Public Elementary School Heads
POSITION
Area
OIC P1 P2 P3 4
Division A 3 4 0 1 6
Division B 0 4 1 3 2
Division C 0 1 0 0 3
Division D 2 4 1 1 0
Total 5 13 2 5 11
Percentage 13.89 36.11 5.56 13.89 30.56
Exhibited in the table is the position profile of the respondents. Majority

of the respondents were Principal 1 (N=13; P=36.11%), followed by Principal 4
(N=11; P=30.56%), Principal 3 and Officer-in-Charge (N=5; P=30.56) and
lastly Principal 2 (N=2; P=5.56).
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Table 4
Status of the School-based Management (SBM) Practice in
CAMANAVA as of January 31, 2018
Level of Practice Frequency Percentage Rank
Level 3 – Advanced 1 2.941 4
Level 2 – Maturing 11 32.353 2
Level 1 – Developing `16 47.059 1
Nearing to Level 1 6 17.647 3
Total 34 100
Presented in Table 4 is the status of implementation of SBM Practice as

of January 31, 2018. There were 34 participating schools which were
anonymously indexed in this study. As revealed, the highest in rank in terms of
frequency counts are those that are under Level 1 with 16 out of 34 schools or
47.059% and are classified as Developing. Developing schools according to
DepEd Order 83 s. 2012 are schools that have developed structures and
mechanisms with acceptable level and extent of community participation, and
impact on learning outcomes.
Discussion
It is very interesting to note that aside from the assessment on the

status of SBM practices, through the images created by the respondents,
themes emerged called SBM Practices: Faces, Phases, and Paces.
Sample images were taken from the descriptions of the principal-

respondents which are essential in this study. To represent the face (the
feature of SBM) of the SBM status, principal respondent used the united-
holding hands image of stakeholders which means that collaboration is
needed. For the phase (the process of SBM) it is represented by a tower that
symbolizes strength of the organization, and for the pace (the rate of SBM),
the infant which is symbolic for growth and development.
Figure 1 Sketch of SH 5 Figure 2 Sketch of SH 31 Figure 3 Sketch of SH 33

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Figure 1 as drawn by a Principal 4 in Level 1 viewed school-based

management as collaboration with the stakeholders to promote shared
leadership and governance for the good of their clientele. Stakeholders’
representatives would work hand in hand knowing their responsibilities and
accountabilities to help the school clientele to have a life-long learning and
globally competitive individual. Figure 2 as drawn by a Principal 3 in Level 1
indicated that the tower signified the strength of the organization. Figure3 as
drawn by a Principal 1 in Level 1 signified that as a school head, he was just
beginning to digest what SBM is all about. He also needed a lot of things to
learn, relearn, and unlearn. This is predictive that as a teacher before he had
no schema of school-based management from the classroom level to the
higher echelons of learning.
The results of this study are similar to the assessment conducted by

World Bank in 2016 wherein most schools have rated themselves at being at
the lowest level of SBM implementation. However, this study focused on four
dimensions such as Leadership and Governance, Curriculum and Instruction,
Accountability and Continuous Improvement, and Management of Resources
(DO No. 83 s. 2012), whereas in that study, the team focused on three
dimensions which are autonomy, participation in decision-making, and
accountability and transparency (Worldbank, 2016).
Autonomy refers to the degree of autonomy wherein schools have to

make their own decisions to determine their ability in affecting the educational
outcomes of their students. Participation in decision-making, as a central
component of SBM reforms, encouraged greater participation by parents and
other members of the community in supporting schools by establishing or
strengthening school governing bodies. Accountability and transparency, as an
important aspect of management practices, was the extent to which a school
is accountable to its local community, including the transparency of the school
decision making process and the quality of information that the school
provided to its stakeholders.
The self-assessment conducted by schools purportedly argued the

strategy for establishing accountability thereby improving quality in education.
However, this assessment can be interdependent in several variables (Jaffer,
2010): the availability of relevant and adequate physical, human, and financial
resources; effective and empowered leadership; and functional monitoring,
evaluation, and professional support for schools.
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De Guzman (2006) claimed that there are eight key elements of

successful SBM implementation, namely: (1) an active vision; (2) meaningful
decision-making authority; (3) distribution of power; (4) development and use
of knowledge and skills; (5) collecting and communicating information; (6)
rewards for progress; (7) shared leadership; and (8) cultivating resources,
were used to serve the purpose of this discourse. Schools should have
collaboratively crafted their own vision, mission, and goals. However, with the
issuance of DepEd Order 36, series of 2013, all public schools shall promote
and adhere to one DepEd vision, mission and core values.
Conclusion
This study has revealed that majority of the school respondents as

assessed by school heads in the status of SBM practice are under Level 1
known as the developing stage. What factors lead to the slow attainment of
the advanced level? SBM is not new in the Philippine setting. The question is
do schools not take SBM seriously? Is it difficult to implement? Do we lack
resources?
The findings of the study is a wake-up call for educational leaders to

revisit policies. Though incentives are given to those who can really excel well,
what matters now is take necessary steps so that the status of implementation
will improve and continue to flourish.
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Chapter 3
School-based Management:
Conscientia en Sententia (cognizance and views)
Abstract
The level of awareness can become a contributory factor in attaining

the desired change in education. The aim of this study is to determine the level
of awareness and views of school heads on School-based implementation in
CAMANAVA area. The study employed a quantitative-qualitative research
approach through a survey questionnaire adopted from DepEd Order 83 s.
2012, and idea sketching followed by a brief explanation of their sketch. Thirty-
six school heads were chosen through cluster sampling. The data gathered
were interpreted by descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation
and Chronbach alpha. The research findings showed that school heads are
Highly Aware of the School-based Management in terms of Leadership and
Governance, Curriculum and Instruction, Management of Resources, and
Accountability and Continuous Improvement. The sketches of respondents
yielded a theme called Dimensions of SBM: leading, learning, creating, and
valuing.
Key Words: School-based management; Dimensions of SBM

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Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

– Eckhart Tolle
Introduction
School-based management, the most radical form of educational

decentralization, involves the transfer of decision-making from the central
government to the school level (Worldbank, 2013). SBM system is a complex
and multifaceted concept comprising many elements and these elements can
be interpreted differently, may have different emphasis and may serve different
purposes (Al-Ghefeili and Hoque, 2013). Thus, awareness to SBM play a vital
role in the sustenance of the program.
Awareness in various disciplines like literature (Roe & Ross,

2010), social sciences such as political science (Gearey, 2015), economics
(Tucker, 2017), sociology (Agar, 2013) and public administration (de Vries
2016; Ishiyama, Miller, & Simon, 2015), and natural science (Chisholm,
2014) and technology disciplines such as physics, chemistry, biology (Keniger,
et.al, 2013; Ciarrochi, 2011) and engineering (Lucerna, Schneider; and
Leydens, 2010); education (Niemelä & Lipponen, 2016), and psychology
(Keniger, et.al, 2013) among others can become a powerful tool in
understanding the most important aspects or practical details of a subject or
situation. The term means knowledge that something exists (Merriam
Webster), or understanding of a situation or subject at the present time based
on information or experience (Cambridge). Simply put, it means knowing what
is going on or having knowledge of something; being informed and
participating is the only way to make the future of our society what we want it
to be.
Raising awareness to something can influence a change in behavior. As

Tolle once said, awareness is the greatest agent for change. With the rapid
surge of globalization, awareness of the importance of investment in human
capital, exponential increase in knowledge, rapid development of technology,
changing needs and expectations, establishment of international standards,
and similar social, economic, political and technological developments have a
significant impact on internal structures and operation of schools, and drive
them to implement change (Hoy & Miskel, 2010 as cited by Karadag, 2015).
Good leaders have the power to change organizations, but very good
leaders have the power to change individuals because the heart of the
organization is the individual (Hoy and Miskel, 2010). Changing organizations
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require awareness. Being aware to educational reforms may encourage the

increase of involvement of parents, students, teachers, officials, principals and
beneficiary groups of the community and local organizations. Knowing the
school reforms, programs, and projects may increase the independency,
responsibility and accountability of school stakeholders (Saeid, et. al, 2012).
By increase of the level of school responsibility, it is expected that the
efficiency of plan is promoted and education effectiveness would be improved
(Weng, 2003 as cited by Saeid).
As a critical lynchpin in fostering and sustaining educational change,

the level of awareness of school heads shape the direction of the school
(Wright, 2010). Precious knowledge and information about education reforms
like school-based management can be useful in crafting decisions which affect
directly or indirectly on curriculum, budget and even physical resources.
In the same way, how school heads’ views or perception is one of the
determinants in shaping program execution. Personal belief and values
orientation affect the delivery of the curriculum. Awareness, attitude and action
for better school leadership have implications to any program implementation.
(Cheung, 2009) Hence, this paper will answer the central question of the study
on what is the level of awareness and views of CAMANAVA public elementary
school heads on SBM implementation in terms of :Leadership and
Governance; Curriculum and Instruction; Accountability and Continuous
Improvement and Management of Resources.
Literature Review
Over the past decades, most countries around the world have begun to
decentralize more authority and resources to schools in an effort to improve
teaching and learning conditions (Worldbank, 2016). This educational reform,
anchored on the principle of school autonomy and community participation,
seemed to follow the pattern predicted by the theories of institutional
isomorphism (Komatsu, 2013). This theory coined by institutionalists in
comparative education states that a country adopts global education reforms
to enhance nation-building and nation-state legitimacy within the international
community.
In the Philippines, educational reforms have been established over the

past 20 years. A closer scrutiny of the Philippine educational history revealed
significant vicissitudes. From the 1990s to the present, several important
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broad frameworks for education reform have been instituted—Education for All
(EFA), The Philippine Plan of Action 1990- 1999; the 1991 Congressional
Commission on Education (EDCOM); the 2000 Presidential Commission on
Education Reform (PCER); the 2000 Education for All (EFA) Assessment; the
ADB–WB initiated and funded Philippine Education Sector Study (PESS); the
2006 National Action Plan for Education for All 2015 (EFA 2015), and the 2006
Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA). Despite substantial
increase in investment to education, achievement levels, performance and
development indicators remained low over the years (Bautista, Bernardo, and
Ocampo,2010; Read and Tamar, 2017), it is conclusive that reforms have not
transformed Philippine education on the ground, so to speak, failed to
enhance nation-building.
School‐based management employed theories of constructivist

organizational theory (Muijs, West, and Ainscow, 2010) and resource
dependence theory (Park and Strand, 2016). Proponents of constructivist
organizational theory believed that the construction of reality must be
shared through narrative and dialogue if leaders were to create
communities in which they can construct meanings that lead toward a
shared purpose for teaching and learning. Narrative and dialogue helped
create school cultures rich in leadership connections so that all
organizational members can become fully functioning professional leaders
(Lambert, et. al, 2002). This theory can be linked towards creating schools
as learning communities. Efforts may be more successful if carried out by
schools collaborating in a network rather than by schools acting alone (Muijs,
West, and Ainscow, 2010). Resource dependence theory, on the other
hand, stressed external influences on international organizations because
of their reliance on external actors for material resources. It focused
primarily on material resources (Pfeffer and Salncik, 1978 as cited by Park
and Strand, 2016).
According to school administrators, change was changing,

renewing, and updating situations that create problems in
implementation (Hosgorur, 2016). School administrators did not
have much freedom in creating change in schools (Brooks,
Sutherland, 2014). They effected change in the areas of
physical structure, technological equipment, and increased use
of technology. In almost all schools, there is resistance to
change.
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The qualitative link of SBM to the formation of a professional learning

community (Syahruddin, 2013), greater focus on student work or assessment
literacy (Sumali, 2016), changes in pedagogy (Hardman, et.al, 2009) and
improved student outcomes (Yamauchi, 2014) is apparent in various
literatures. The impact of school-based management (Bautista, Bernardo, and
Ocampo, 2010; Abulencia, 2012; World Bank/AusAid Report, 2016), in
developed societies prompted the education officials to adopt the mechanism
to the Philippine setting. This key reform program had been concretized in
different parts of the world. Australia adopted the strategy in 1976; Britain in
1988; the US in 1988; New Zealand in 1989; Mexico in 1992; Hong Kong in
1991; Thailand in 1999; and, the Philippines in 2001 (Bautista, Bernardo and
Ocampo, 2010). The key tenet of this reform was to involve all stakeholders in
improving their own schools, by increasing the number of schools with school
improvement plans (SIPs) prepared, implemented, and monitored through a
participatory process, and by increasing the amount of resources managed
and controlled at the school level (Read and Tamar, 2017).
However, there was low awareness in the combination of SBM as a

mechanism for decentralized governance in education with various strategies
to improve schools and student achievement in countries like the Philippines
(Bautista, Bernardo and Ocampo, 2010). It was also noted that elementary
school principals as compared to high school principals highlighted
weaknesses in their implementation of SBM (World Bank, 2016). In the same
study, more high school principals mentioned their inability to raise sufficient
resources as a major impediment to putting SBM into practice.
Significant accomplishments have been undertaken. These include the

conduct of a nationwide advocacy campaign that disseminated basic primers
on SBM, school leadership, and school performance accountability and a
manual on the assessment of SBM practices, publishing a primer on the
school governing council (SGC); omnibus SBM manual that highlights SBM as
a mechanism for integrating various education inputs and components like the
NCBTS towards enhanced learning; and, developing the competency
standards for school heads. Beyond advocacy, the training of trainers on SBM
and NCBTS across regions has been conducted and plans to roll down SBM
to all divisions and schools have been carried out.
Recently, the revised SBM framework, assessment process and tool as

contained in DepEd Order 83, series of 2012 shall be officially used as
instruments in assessing the school’s SBM practice. This Order also served as
the venue to introduce the harmonized Philippine Accreditation System for
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Basic Education (PASBE) as an integral component of SBM Practice. It

followed the same rating scale of 0 to 3 but then, there is a 60%-40%
computation. The 60% is based in improvement of learning outcomes, while
the 40% recording to the validated practices using the Document Analysis,
Observation, and Discussion (DO No. 83 s. 2012).
Mechanisms and documents relating to Access (45%), Efficiency

(25%), and Quality (30%) comprised the 60% computation, while mechanisms
and documents showing Leadership and Governance (30%), Curriculum and
Learning (30%), Accountability and Continuous Improvement (25%), and
Management of Resources (15%) comprised the remaining 40%.
The revised system use criteria for evaluation of validity of artifacts. In

Relevance, the evidence must be appropriate to the indicator being assessed.
It is appropriate if the document is a product of practice as expressed in the
indicator. In Accuracy, the evidence must be correct as to content or
procedure. Currency measures the artifacts as to its presence, existence and
actual. In Consistency, the evidence must be verifiable and generates the
same results from most of the sources. Finally, Sufficiency criteria verify that
the evidence must be adequate. If a student learning portfolio is presented as
evidence of self-directed learning, its presence in only two or three classes is
not considered as an evidence of school-wide implementation.
There are three levels of SBM Practice. Level 1 or Developing pertains

to developing structures and mechanisms with acceptable level and extent of
community participation and impact on learning outcomes. Level II or Maturing
means that the school is introducing or sustaining continuous improvement
process that integrates wider community participation and improve significantly
performance and learning outcomes. Level III or Advanced ensures the
production of intended outputs or outcomes and meeting all standards of a
system fully integrated in the local community and is self-renewing and self-
sustaining.
Philippine Accreditation System for Basic Education (PASBE) is an

accreditation process that looks into the operations of the public and private
elementary and secondary schools if they meet the quality standards as
established by stakeholders of basic education. DedEd Order No. 20 series of
2013 provides supplemental guidelines to the PASBE accreditation process
wherein an accredited status in PASBE is equivalent to Level III SBM practice.
This reinforces the role of SBM and accreditation as an integrated quality
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measure, where PASBE is the quality assurance mechanism of the SBM

practice.
In the light of various literatures espousing the levels of awareness and

views of school heads, there is a need for further investigate the level of
awareness on Enhanced-School Based Management This present study
aimed to identify the level of awareness of public school heads on the
enhanced school-based management framework in terms of leadership and
governance, curriculum and instruction, accountability and continuous
improvement, and management of resources. It also sought to ascertain the
views of CAMANAVA public elementary school heads on SBM implementation.
This quali/quanti method research used a survey questionnaire on the first
part, and idea sketching of the school head’s views on the enhanced school-
based management. The description of their views below each sketch may not
somehow encapsulate the views of the school heads, but it gives the
researcher a glimpse to the emerging themes of their views.
Method
This study employed a quantitative and qualitative research approach

using survey questionnaire and sketching. The school head’s awareness on
enhanced School-based Management can be best measured through a
survey questionnaire containing the indicators found in SBM Framework,
Assessment Process and Tool of DepEd Order 83 series 2012. The adopted
instrument was followed by sketching or drawing a symbol that represents as
to how the school head views the E-SBM implementation. To further validate
the representation drawn by the respondent, an explanation was provided next
to the drawing.
The study involves clustered random sampling design or sometimes

referred to as area sampling (Trochim, Donnelly and Arora, 2015). Accordingly,
cluster random sampling is a sampling method that involves dividing the
population into groups called clusters, in this study into school districts, and
then sampling each element in the selected cluster. This method is useful
when sampling a population that is spread across a wide geographical
location such as CAMANAVA area.
The researcher came up with a list of clusters or school districts, and

from each cluster conducted a random sampling by choosing two schools from
each clustered district, regardless of the size of the school or position of the
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school head. A total of thirty-six school heads were chosen from CAMANAVA
area as research locale.
Respondents were chosen based on their availability and willingness to

participate in the study. Ethical considerations such as confidentiality of
identity were emphasized.
Results
The following data and tables presented here were interpreted in

answering the question in this study.
Table 1
Respondent’s Level of Awareness and Views of CAMANAVA Public
Elementary School Heads on SBM Implementation in terms of
Leadership and Governance
Leadership and Governance Indicators Mean Rank Interpretation SD
1. In place is a Development Plan (e.g. SIP)
developed collaboratively by the 2.83 4.5 Highly Aware 0.56
stakeholders of the school and community.
2. The development plan (e.g. SIP) is regularly
reviewed by the school community to keep it 2.83 4.5 Highly Aware 0.38
responsive and relevant to emerging needs,
challenges and opportunities.
3. The school is organized by a clear structure
and work arrangements that promote
shared leadership and governance and 2.86 1.5 Highly Aware 0.35
define the roles and responsibilities of the
stakeholders.
4. A leadership of network facilities
communication between and among school
and community leaders for informed 2.72 3 Highly Aware 0.46
decision-making and solving of school
community-wide learning problems.
5. A long term program is in operation that
addresses the training and development 2.86 1.5 Highly Aware 0.35
needs of school and community leaders.
Grand Mean 2.82 Highly Aware
Legend: 1.00-1.49 – Not Aware; 1.50-2.49 – Aware; 2.50-3.00 – Highly Aware
Exhibited in Table 1 is the respondent’s level of awareness of

CAMANAVA Public Elementary School Heads on the SBM implementation in
terms of Leadership and Governance. As revealed, all of the indicators were
rated Highly Aware. The highest in rank among indicators are The school is
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organized by a clear structure and work arrangements that promote shared

leadership and governance and define the roles and responsibilities of the
stakeholders (x=2.86; SD=0.35); and A long term program is in operation that
addresses the training and development needs of school and community
leaders (x=2.86; SD=0.35). The standard deviation, as a measure of
dispersion of sample or population scores around the mean score, is the most
important and widely used measure of dispersion in quantitative variables
(Spillane, 2004). Since most standard deviation scores were below 1, it shows
that the data points are very close to the mean.
As revealed in their mental images, the most common object that is

perceived to be in this category are the following:

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Figure 13 Sketch of SH 21 Figure 14 Sketch of SH 31
In this study, the school principal takes the lead in the interdependency
and interrelation activities. The role of a school leader initiates collaborative
harmonious relationship with the parents, teachers, LGUs private
organizations and other stakeholders. This convergence needs a competent to
leader to harmonize all shared ideas towards a common goal. The hands
joined together represent shared leadership, close collaboration and
harmonious relationship as to the leadership and governance part of SBM.
The awareness of the school heads are affected also by the policy.
Primarily because DepEd is a policy-driven organization, the implementation
of SBM was known to all since the DepEd Order serves as a catalyst that
serve as a guide for school heads from womb to tomb of the program.
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Table 2
Curriculum and Instruction
Curriculum and Implementation Indicators Mean Rank Interpretation SD
1. The curriculum provides for the
development needs of all types of learners 2.78 3 Highly Aware 0.42
in the school community.
2. The implemented curriculum is localized to
make it more meaningful to the learners and 2.69 5 Highly Aware 0.47
applicable to life in the community.
3. A representative group of school and
community stakeholders develop the 2.54 6 Highly Aware 0.61
methods and materials for developing
creative thinking and problem solving.
4. The learning systems are regularly and
collaboratively monitored by the community
using appropriate tools to ensure the holistic 2.47 7 Aware 0.56
growth and development of the learners and
the community.
5. Appropriate assessment tools for teaching
and learning are continuously reviewed and
improved, and assessments results are 2.72 4 Highly Aware 0.45
contextualized to the learner and local
situation and the attainment of relevant life
skills.
6. Learning managers and facilitators
(teachers, administrators, and community
members) nurture values and environment 2.89 1.5 Highly Aware 0.32
that are protective of all children and
demonstrate behaviors consistent to the
organization's vision, mission and goals.
7. Methods and resources are learner and 2.89 1.5 Highly Aware 0.32
community-friendly, enjoyable, safe,
inclusive, and accessible and aimed at
developing self-directed learners. Learners
are equipped with essential knowledge,
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skills and values to assume responsibility

and accountability for their own learning.
Shown in Table 2 is the respondent’s level of awareness of CAMANAVA

Public Elementary School Heads on the SBM implementation in terms of
Curriculum and Instruction is Highly Aware. The highest in rank are Learning
managers and facilitators (teachers, administrators, and community members)
nurture values and environment that are protective of all children and
demonstrate behaviors consistent to the organization's vision, mission and
goals (x=2.89; SD=.0.32); and Methods and resources are learner and
community-friendly, enjoyable, safe, inclusive, and accessible and aimed at
developing self-directed learners. Learners are equipped with essential
knowledge, skills and values to assume responsibility and accountability for
their own learning (x=2.89; SD=.0.32). Similar to Table 1, the standard
deviation scores in this dimension is very, very close to the mean score. This
means that the responses have low variance.
The high awareness in this dimension can be attributed to the features

of the K to 12 Basic Education Program which is to make the curriculum
relevant to all learners by using contextualization and enhancements. The
school’s heads are only aware on the learning systems that are regularly and
collaboratively monitored by the community using appropriate tools to ensure
the holistic growth and development of the learners and the community.
The study also revealed that the only mental image where curriculum is
explicitly expressed is this:

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In these sketches, the respondents show that learning never stops. The
school head must continuously learn, relearn, and unlearn, Instruction must
also adhere to certain standards. it represents that the proper implementation
of DepEd shared vision, mission, and shared decision will produce diversity
learners and improve curriculum and learning or improved access to basic
quality education.
Table 3
Accountability and Continuous Improvement
Accountability and Continuous Improvement
Mean Rank Interpretation SD
Indicators
1. Roles and responsibilities of accountable
person/s and collective body/ies are clearly 2.83 1 Highly Aware 0.38
defined and agreed upon by community
stakeholders.
2. Achievement of goals is recognized based
on a collaboratively developed performance 2.69 2 Highly Aware 0.47
accountability system; gaps are addressed
through appropriate action.
3. The accountability system is owned by the
community and is continuously enhanced to
ensure that management structures and 2.47 5 Aware 0.61
mechanisms are responsive to the emerging
learning needs and demands of the
community.
4. Accountability assessment criteria and tools,
feedback mechanisms and information
collection and validation techniques and 2.58 3 Highly Aware 0.50
processes are inclusive and collaboratively
developed and agreed upon.
5. Participatory assessment of performance is
done regularly with the community.
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Assessments results and lessons learned

serve as basis for feedback, technical
assistance, recognition and plan 2.53 4 Highly Aware 0.61
adjustment.
Table 3 showed the respondent’s level of awareness of CAMANAVA

Public Elementary School Heads on the SBM implementation in terms of
Accountability and Continuous Improvement. It is visible that school heads are
highly aware on the indicator on roles and responsibilities of accountable
person/s and collective body/ies are clearly defined and agreed upon by
community stakeholders. (x=2.83; SD=0.38). On the other hand, they are only
aware on the indicator the accountability system is owned by the community
and is continuously enhanced to ensure that management structures and
mechanisms are responsive to the emerging learning needs and demands of
the community. The standard deviation of 0.38 clearly showed that the
respondent’s responses are very close to the mean score.
Figure 23 Sketch of SH 4 Figure 24 Sketch of SH 18 Figure 25 Sketch of SH 23 Figure 26 Sketch of SH 34
The mental image that is most likely attributed to this category is shown
above. The first drawing represents that the documents as products of practice
must be carefully stored. As the respondent quipped, SBM is filing the right file
for better assessment. The sense of accountability for every school head must
be high, and that can be attained if he put love in his work, as represented in
Figure 24. Figures 25 and 26 represent the continuous cycle of improvement
geared towards the development of the holistic learners.
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Table 4
Management of Resources
Management of Resources Indicators Mean Rank Interpretation SD
1. Regular resource inventory is collaboratively
undertaken by learning managers, learning
facilitators, and community stakeholders as 2.67 3 Highly Aware 0.54
basis for resource allocation and
mobilization.
2. A regular dialogue for planning and resource
programing, that is accessible and inclusive, Highly
continuously engage stakeholders and 2.78 1 0.42
Aware
support implementation of community
education plans.
3. In place is a community-developed resource
management system that drives appropriate Highly
behaviors of the stakeholders to ensure 2.56 5 0.50
Aware
judicious, appropriate, and effective use of
resources.
4. Regular monitoring, evaluation and
reporting processes of resource Highly
management are collaboratively developed 2.72 2 0.51
Aware
and implemented by the learning managers,
facilitators, and community stakeholders.
5. There is a system that manages the network
and linkages which strengthen and sustain Highly
2.64 4 0.54
partnerships for improving resource Aware
management.
Table 4 is a revelation of the respondent’s level of awareness of

CAMANAVA Public Elementary School Heads on the SBM implementation in
terms of Management of Resources. It is evident that the school heads are
Highly Aware in all indicators. They are most aware in the indicator that says a
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regular dialogue for planning and resource programing that is accessible and
inclusive, continuously engage stakeholders and support implementation of
community education plans.
Though Highly Aware, the lowest in rank is a community-developed

resource management system that drives appropriate behaviors of the
stakeholders to ensure judicious, appropriate, and effective use of resources.
This is analogous to the results presented by World Bank Group that by 2014,
schools were managing significant amounts of resources and using these
funds to implement their own school improvement plans. Also, in 2015, the
Department of Education (DepEd) issued new guidelines drawing on past
experience that aimed to strengthen school improvement planning and make it
more transparent.
The sketch below aptly represents the school head’s views on

Enhanced School-Based Management in terms of Management of Resources.
In this study, the candle represents the management of resources

which serves as the guiding light to the successful path the school will take in
order to help the pupils achieve their full potential as stated in the DepEd
vision. The projected light created some ways to achieve the vision by looking
to all possibilities of implementing the SBM. Figure 28 represents the modern
day bayanihan where all stakeholders contribute their efforts for the attainment
of school goals.
Table 5
Summary of Level of Awareness and Views of CAMANAVA Public
Elementary School Heads on SBM
Symbolic
SBM Dimensions Mean Rank Interpretation Representation
of Views
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1. Leadership and Governance 2.82 1 Highly Aware Fig. 1 - 14
2. Curriculum and Instruction 2.71 2 Highly Aware Fig. 15 - 22

3. Accountability and Continuous 2.62 4 Highly Aware Fig. 23 - 26
Improvement
4. Management of Resources 2.67 3 Highly Aware Fig. 27 - 28
Overall Mean 2.71 Highly Aware
Exhibited in Table 5 is the summary of the respondent’s level of

awareness and views of CAMANAVA Public Elementary School Heads on the
Enhanced School-Based Management. This study revealed that all school
heads are Highly Aware in all the SBM dimensions. Evidently, Leadership and
Governance ranked 1 among all dimensions. This is not surprising since
school heads are considered as stewards of the institution as stated in the
DepEd Mission. Hence, they are expected to be adept in this area.
The views of the principal-respondents on the above variables yielded a

theme called “Dimensions of School-based Management”. For leadership and
governance, it is referred as the leading dimension, for curriculum and
instruction, it is called the learning dimension, for accountability and
continuous improvement, it is called the valuing dimension, and for
management of resources, it is called the creating dimension.
The awareness and views of SBM is illustrated through the conceptual

framework that follows.
Figure 29: Dimensions of School-based Management

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LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
DIMENSION
LEADING
MANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES
DIMENSION
LEARNING
DIMENSION
CREATING
ACCOUNTABILITY
AND CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT DIMENSION
VALUING
Discussion
Leadership is a process that coalesce individuals into groups and to

solve problems together under the authority of an individual selected to guide
them (Prentice, 2013). The individual vested with such authority is called the
leader. He, then, is viewed as a perpetuation of a mythic-hero leader like
Superman because of their ability to collaborate, to build bridges among and
across diverse places, people, and ideas, to create power in the collective,
and to nurture teams and communities to sustainably lead themselves (Hays,
Kim, 2012).
The leader of the school can be equated to that of a superhero as he

implemented the varied dimensions of school-based management. But then,
unlike Superman, the school head shares leadership and power. He
understands that the tasks are too herculean and too complex, that
opportunities are too important and multi-faceted, and that his term in the
school is unpredictable, hence, people must lead themselves.
The results have shown that school heads are Highly Aware in all four
areas. Evidently and as expected, they must be adept in Leadership and
Governance so as to handle multifarious tasks. Aside from being a policy-
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driven organization, the high results can be attributed to the virtual

accessibility of the policies, memoranda, orders, and circulars. Gone are the
days that the memos are cascaded through channels. In this modern era,
anyone can simply download the copies of documents from the website.
The dissemination of information has come in various forms: print,

broadcast, and social media. The rapid adoption of social media by the
government agencies such as the Department of Education has outpaced the
regulatory framework related to information (Bertot, Jaeger,Hansen, 2012). It
offers several key opportunities for the technology like:
a. Democratic participation and engagement fosters participatory

dialogue and provide voice in discussions of policy development
and implementation;
b. Co-production, in which the public jointly develop, design, and

deliver government services to improve service quality, delivery,
and responsiveness;
c. Crowdsourcing solutions and innovations, seeking innovation

through public knowledge and talent to develop innovative
solutions to large-scale societal issues.
In an assessment conducted by World Bank in 2016, it focused on

three dimensions: autonomy, participation in decision making, and
accountability and transparency. The study found out that the key elements of
an effective school-based management system are in place. However, schools
report that they are not yet implementing many of the key aspects of this
system. Parents and local communities still play a very limited role in decision-
making and in holding schools accountable (World Bank, 2016). At some
point, this study is analogous to the present study. The school heads are
highly aware but whether they are implementing the key aspects of the system
is now in question.
It is also evident that school heads are Highly Aware in terms of

Curriculum and Instruction. The implementation of Republic Act 10533
otherwise known as Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 has contributed
much to this result. With the change of educational landscape, series of mass
trainings were conducted. Curriculum instruction was contextualized and
made relevant for the learners. However, the school heads are only Aware on
the learning systems are regularly and collaboratively monitored by the
community using appropriate tools to ensure the holistic growth and
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development of the learners and the community. The schools heads know that
learning systems should be in place; however the appropriate tools for regular
and collaborative monitoring still remain obscure.
The school heads are Highly Aware in terms of Accountability and

Continuous Improvement. The result may be attributed to the series of
Continuous Improvement Program (CIP) seminars being conducted across the
region. Continuous Improvement (CI) is a methodology which continually
assesses, analyzes and acts on the improvement of key processes focusing
on both the customer needs and the desired performance that enliven
DepEd’s commitment to build a culture of continuous learning and
improvement (Coca, 2015). It is in this line that CI’s context is integrated in the
learning environment to better respond to the changing times and to mobilize
the vision of shaping a culture that will have direct and relevant impact to the
learners. However, being a new program in partnership with Basic Education
Sector Transformation (BEST), this dimension ranked last.
The mental image on views is represented by series of arrows in a

circular form (Figure 6). This means that all systems in school are continually
getting better, through series of monitoring, evaluation, and feedback. It also
means getting the voice of the customer and getting the root cause of the
problem (BEST, 2015).
The level of awareness on Management of Resources dimension is

rated Highly Aware in all indicators. In a similar study conducted in Israel (Arar,
Amal, 2016), awareness to SBM yielded positive improvements in budget
management in schools that begin to implement it. However in Iran (Saeid
Moradi et. al, 2012), their main concern in implementing SBM is allocating
financial resources to schools and on how to properly manage these funds.
Certain areas in the discussion of fiscal leadership are changing but core
values such as the importance of honesty and integrity remain constant
(Prentice, 2013).
Conclusion
The results have shown that school heads are Highly Aware in all four
areas. Evidently and as expected, they must be adept in Leadership and
Governance so as to handle multifarious tasks. Aside from being a policy-
driven organization, the high results can be attributed to the virtual
accessibility of the policies, memoranda, orders, and circulars.
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the learning systems are regularly and collaboratively monitored by the
development of the learners and the community.

improvement.

rated Highly Aware in all indicators. Certain areas in the discussion of fiscal
leadership are changing but core values such as the importance of honesty
and integrity remain constant.
Finally, the views of the principal-respondents on the above variables

yielded a theme called “Dimensions of School-based Management”. These are
the leading dimension, the learning dimension, the valuing dimension,
and the creating dimension.
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Chapter 4
Challenges in School-Based Management:

What for and where do we go from here?
Abstract
The quantitative method of research aims to determine the extent of

challenges to SBM implementation in some selected divisions of the National
Capital Region. This descriptive study involved 36 school heads in the
CAMANAVA area who were chosen based on their availability and willingness
to participate in the study.
This study employed a researcher-made instrument that was validated

and subjected to Cronbach alpha for internal consistency. The overall reliability
coefficient of 0.89 is equivalent to Acceptable level. The instrument contained
a 4-point Likert scale from 1-4 with descriptions from very low extent to very
high extent. The gathered data were interpreted using weighted mean and
ranking.
The findings showed that challenges in SBM implementation were

considered at low extent. However, the primary challenge in leadership and
governance is on paper works and excessive redundancy of documents which
reduces the efficiency rate of a school system with other corroborating factors.
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The deprivation of instructional leadership due to many administrative and

financial activities posed as challenge in Curriculum and Instruction, while
poor attendance in school governing council meetings remain the biggest
challenge in Accountability and Continuous Improvement. In management of
resources, the parental belief that the school is the key player to a successful
educational activity remains a problem.
The researcher recommended that the next order of research would

focus on the relationship of school head’s position of level of SBM practice as
seasoned schools may have gathered diverse strategies in mitigating a
challenge.
Key Words: Challenges, School-based Management
“To remain indifferent to the challenges

we face is indefensible.
If the goal is noble,
whether or not it is realized within our lifetime
is largely irrelevant.
What we must do therefore is to
strive and persevere and never give up.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
Introduction
The Philippine educational system had underwent reforms in

governance and curricular changes for the past years. As a result, challenges
have been posed in which educational leaders and policy maker must
address. It is a fact that good education involves not only physical input such
as classrooms, teachers and textbooks but also incentives that lead to better
instruction and learning. Education systems place extreme demands on the
managerial, technical and financial capacity of governments; thus, education
as a system is too complex to be produced and distributed efficiently in a
centralized fashion (King and Cordeiro-Guerra, 2015).
In many education systems there has emerged recognition that school-

based decision-making and management has potential to bring improvement
in the quality of education. It is against this background that there has been
growing interest in the decentralization of education services including the
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human resources management function. SBM is the decentralization of

authority from the central government to the school level (Caldwell, 2005).
Malen et al. (1990), cited in Malaklolunthu and Shamsudin (2011) posit that
SBM can be viewed conceptually as a formal alteration of governance
structures, as a form of decentralization that identifies the individual school as
the primary unit of improvement and relies on the redistribution of decision
making authority as the primary means through which improvement might be
stimulated and sustained. Thus in SBM responsibility for and decision making
authority over school operations are transferred to principals, teachers,
parents and sometimes to students and other school community members.
However, these school level actors have to conform to or operate within a set
of policies determined by the central government. SBM programs exist in
many different forms, both in terms of who has the power to make decisions
and in terms of the degree of decision making devolved to the school level.
The management of education system in the Philippines is highly

centralized until the time when SBM was introduced. Responsibility for most
education services typically remains centralized in government agencies,
complicating local school management and accountability. However, the
ongoing process of decentralization is distributing responsibilities slowly, but
the local levels remain largely dependent on division education offices and
have little autonomy. Responsibility for continuing professional development,
deployment and evaluation typically remains centralized in government
agencies, complicating local school management and accountability, though
Learning Action Cells (LACs) are gaining momentum (DO 35 s. 2016). This
has led to a number of challenges over the past few years which include: lack
of financial transparency, access, equity, curriculum relevance and quality.
This prompted a need to undertake a study on how SBM challenges are
manifested in leadership and governance, curriculum and instruction,
accountability and continuous improvement and management of resources.
The SBM challenges in the CAMANAVA area are effects of political will,
shared governance, policy implementation, and accountability of educational
leaders in the community. It is observed that through leadership and
governance, the school heads are still dependent on division policies in which
schools will follow. But to some extent, principals exercise their power on how
they can improve services in the community. Like at this time, pre-selection of
qualified teachers depends on the selection committee in the school (DO 7 s.
2016). While it is true that curriculum implementation takes also further heights
through the K-12 reforms, it can be observed that challenges are still observed
in preparation of instructional guides, textbooks and teacher training.
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Continuous improvement must also be taken into account which a good

school must address. Continuous improvement entails scrutiny on the
institutional strengths and weaknesses thereby advocating something for the
better and aiming further improvement through the help of all stakeholders.
Management of resources is an effect of budget allocation and

economic instability. This calls for school leaders to innovate, be creative in
using school resources and how resources can be generated at no cost at all.
The above challenges make a school leader think of possible solutions on to
overcome those challenges in this era of fast changing society.
Hence, those challenges prompted the researcher to embark on this

study and hopefully can contribute to policy recommendation so that SBM can
be maximized thereby contributing to a better learning environment and school
performance.
Literature Review
Murphy (1997) cited in Malaklolunthu and Shamsudin (2011) postulates

that SBM is primarily a strategy to decentralize decision making to the
individual school site and it facilitates the empowerment of parents and the
professionalism of teachers by allowing shared decision making among key
stakeholders at the local level. The concept of SBM and shared decision
making fall under the umbrella of participative management. It has become an
accepted belief that when people participate in decisions affecting them, they
are more likely to have a sense of ownership and commitment to the decisions
and situations that involve them. The conceptualization for SBM is based on
the autonomy participation nexus. This dimension is based on who gets the
decision-making power when it is devolved to the school level. Wohlstetter and
Odden (1992), cited in Malaklolunthu and Shamsudin (2011) identified three
different models of SBM. In the first Model, the community has most control
over decision making and the objectives of the reform tend to focus on
accountability to parents and choice; in the second model it is teachers who
receive most of the authority and many of these reforms have teacher
empowerment as a primary objective; lastly, the third model has the principal
as the key decision maker and is intended to provide increased accountability
to central or local authority and improve efficient use of resources. Leithwood
and Menzies as cited by Crosthwaite (2015) identified a fourth model on
balanced control whereby decision making authority is vested between
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parents and teachers who are the two main stakeholders in any school. The
central tenet of all SBM reforms is to place the locus of decision –making and
authority closer to those at the school level. There are wide ranging rationales
that explain the significance of SBM. First, advocates of SBM argue that SBM
fosters educational demand in the community. They emphasize that SBM
ensures that schools provide the social and economic benefits that are more
responsive to the priorities and values of those in local communities (World
Bank Report, 2016).
One of the simplest theories for SBM is that people who primarily
benefit from education (i.e. children, their parents, and other community
members) should have a say in the provision of education. Second, in an
economic crisis, many governments have found themselves incompetent to
guarantee the quality of education in the daily workings of the very bottom of
the educational bureaucracy i.e. at the school level. To supplement this
financial shortage, deploying limited financial and human resources, and
sharing costs become more the focus. Third, advocates for the reforms
emphasize that by giving local authorities decision making authority over
school management, they become aware of educational problems such as low
enrolment, attendance and academic performance, and begin to realize key
disincentives to schooling.
SBM exists in different forms some of them include: One, community

participation and decision making. This form deals with parental involvement in
the management of schools (Patrinos and Kagia, 2007). DeStefano (2014),
contends that community schools are not only effective at increasing access to
basic education and raising the completion rate of primary education, but also
students from community schools perform as well as or better than students in
traditional public schools as measured by language and mathematics test
scores. This is how SBM devolves authority to the school principal. The
participative management required of SBM structures means that authority is
delegated from higher to lower levels. The principal is assumed to be key
player in the decentralization and restructuring process in school. Some of the
challenges of SBM include low levels of authority with high levels of
responsibility coupled with the demand for accountability (Grishtain and
Gibton, 2018), lack of involving parents and teachers in school management
and lack of skills on operations of SBM by stakeholders of schools. However,
in SBM principals, teachers and parents’ involvement create a positive
development for their schools, improves efficiency in the operation of
educational systems; and promotes concepts like increased school autonomy,
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accountability, democratization, legitimacy, flexibility and responsiveness,

redistribution of decision power, and participatory planning (Caldwell, 2015).
The lack of literature on school challenges of SBM in the Philippines is

a challenge of this study. But a study in Indonesia is helpful in this study which
supports the literature needed in this review.
The study by Bjork (2013) about the implementation power distribution

in decentralized Indonesian education indicated that thirty years in centralized
government made teachers less creative than they should have been. Having
two memberships in society, as educators and civil servants, teachers were in
a difficult position. The precedent system, in which teachers would gain
regular pay increases every four years regardless of their efforts, made
teachers less dedicated. The devolution system would only encourage the civil
servants to perform what the government had expected them to do to make
them safe in their jobs. He emphasized that the 30-year centralized system
had resulted in dependency among districts. In addition, the low teachers’
income in poor districts also motivated teachers to hold other jobs, such as
private lessons in the evening. As a result, teachers had less time to prepare
and improve their teaching.
Additionally, Bjork (2013) also indicated that curriculum development

had its challenges. Based on the Education Acts of Indonesia, schools should
offer Local Content Curriculum (LCC), an elective course that is adopted
based on the uniqueness of the region. However, based on Bjork’s study,
none of the schools tried to apply LCC, as it should have been. The LCC was
deemed to fail in embracing either the uniqueness of the area or the interests
of the students. Instead of finding new subject matters, Bjork noted that
teachers had changed the name of the subject to fit the LCC suggested by the
government without significantly changing the content and the teaching
methods. The changes in the content were merely to fit the changes of the
academic system from semesters into a quarter systems. The implementation
of KTSP also affected students’ learning and assessment. The standardized
learning contents and processes, and students ‘competencies and
assessment offered unique challenges. The Education Laws state that at the
end of each level, (elementary school, junior and senior high school) students
have the right to attend national examination developed by the government,
which is aimed at measuring students’ competencies.
Bjork further stated, to understand the challenges of the implementation

of SBM, it is necessary to deconstruct the context. The deconstruction of the
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context begins from the curriculum, which indirectly becomes the center of the
study when people talk about education system. Based on the theory of
curriculum decision-making, indicate that in general, a curriculum is divided
into four: societal, institutional, instructional and experiential. The societal
curriculum is considered to be the broadest and to cover the social level,
including the global, social, and political level. It is developed and decided by
the board without necessarily being agreed by the lower level. The institutional
curriculum is known to be the most democratic because it is designed and is
decided by the community together with educator staff. The instructional
curriculum is known to be the most local. It is developed and decided at school
level, and therefore the appropriateness of the design is determined by the
ability of teachers and the curriculum designers at school level. Different from
the other three curricula, the experiential curriculum is very personal, being
developed and decided by the students based on their needs and interests.
From the explanation above, it can be inferred that the current Indonesian
curriculum, the KTSP, is an institutional curriculum, which is economic,
political, and social driven. The decentralization in education, which is
presented by the adoption of SBM, is triggered by the global economic
condition that influenced the economy of the country.
While in the Philippine setting, Abulencia (2012) stated several reasons

and explain why SBM is widely supported by different policy makers and even
governments. One of the main reasons is that principals, teachers and parent
share the best people to manage the resources available for education to
meet the needs of the wider community. If there is a strict regulation imposed
upon schools, it limits its ability to make a full potential in meeting
students’ needs. If school organization is given importance, it will have a net
effect on student performance through increased test scores and reduced
dropout rates (Montreal Economic Institute, 2007). Although many other
factors affect student performance such as influence of the family,
school autonomy has the strongest influence on the overall quality of school
management and organization. The implementation of SBM also results in
“increased efficiency and innovation in the delivery of education, reduced
education bureaucracy, increased responsiveness of schools to the needs of
local communities, strengthened accountability and increased engagement
with, and financial support for, schools” (Montreal Economic Institute,
2007).
Every educational institution has its own share of problems that need to
be addressed. Some of these issues especially in public schools include high
dropout rate, low cohort-survival rate, burgeoning classrooms and low quality
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of graduates that fail to meet the competencies as required in higher

education institutions (Abulencia, 2012).
The common challenges in decentralization in educational management

(DEM) in the Philippines are the following according to SIREP (2012):
a. Education managers at the lower levels generally lack skills and the
capacity to perform their new functions.
b. Local political interference in the schools such as the area of school
building program.
c. Mobilizing domestic resources to finance decentralization projects
d. The main difficulty for the Philippines is getting the right mixture of
components to make decentralization work.
e. The education system is struggling to orchestrate interventions into
coherent, harmonious, efficient and effective systems or
mechanisms to maintain focus on the desired outcomes and sustain
the gains and success
Bautista, Bernardo and Ocampo (2010) noted that in developed

societies, SBM increases participation in decision making, but does not
appear to have an effect on teaching and learning when treated merely as a
change in governance structure.
A major “reality shock” for novice principals as they transitioned into

their new occupation was a sense of ultimate responsibility. This sense of
ultimate responsibility contributed to three core problems of practice—task
volume, diversity, and unpredictability. While almost all novices experienced
the responsibility shock as well as one or more of the practice problems, the
conditions of novices’ transitions to the principalship either eased or
exacerbated the level of practice problems they encountered. Implications for
Research and Practice: Our account shows how the volume, diversity, and
unpredictability of tasks emerge early and intensify over new principals’ first 3
months on the job, largely due to new principals’ sense of ultimate
responsibility. In our conclusion, we discuss the implications of our work for
research and practice by considering ways that problems of practice can be
eased for novices as they transition into their new position.(Spillane and Lee,
2013)
Principals struggle with the challenge of how to build school climates

that improve practice in an era of heightened accountability and increasingly
complex adaptive challenges. Nearly all of the principals in this study
employed the following leadership imperatives: (a) attending to context-
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specific priorities for creating and enhancing school climate, (b) cultivating
shared values and flexibility, and (c) building a culture of collaboration. The
public school principals tended to employ mostly managerial leadership
strategies to address the financial and structural realities of their settings. All
emphasized the importance of building structures for adult collaboration and
the essential need to allocate time for collaboration as well. Independent
school leaders mostly relied on the flexibility afforded them through their
different missions to create structures and cultivate opportunities for
collaboration. (Drago-Severso, 2012)
In a study conducted by Sarrico, Rosa and Manatos in 2012 to

investigate gaps in relation to the determinants of that performance,
especially at the level of school performance management practices, they
found out that self‐evaluation and performance management are not well
developed in schools. Most schools monitor exam results, progression and
completion rates. However, they do not seem to do it in a formal and
systematic way, and find it difficult to understand the reasons for the
results obtained. Incorporation of performance measures into performance
management is incipient, and most acknowledge the difficulty of going from
measurement of results to improvement actions. Few can demonstrate that
improvement actions have resulted from self‐evaluation and very few
evaluate improvement actions' results. There seems to be an agreement
that the external evaluation of schools has prompted the development of
self‐evaluation.
SBM has positively created improvements in teaching-learning

environments (Bandur, 2012), revenue generation (Abadzi, 2013; Rahabav &
Que, 2013), student achievement (Bandur, 2012; Carr-Hill et. al, 2016), and
school efficiency (Lindberg & Vanyushyn, 2013), pedagogy, decision-making,
and participation (Arar & Abu-Romi, 2016),
Even if the expectations of an implemented SBM role should lead to

improved school efficiency, various researches showed indirect relationships
between school-based management to curriculum development (Jalaluddin &
Akmal, 2015), planning and decision making practices (Prabhakar & Rao,
2011; Barrera-Osorio et. al.,2009). Teamwork does not exist in Israeli-Bedouin
schools (Mizel, 2009) and exacerbates conflict among staff (Mizel, 2009; Ayeni
& Ibukun, 2013). This resulted to low level of student’s academic achievement
(Ayeni & Ibukun, 2013; Abadzi, 2013) and instructional leadership tasks were
perceived as having lower importance and performance (Lindberg &
Vanyushyn, 2013; Ayeni & Ibukun, 2013). This can be attributed to the
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documentary requirements needed as means of verification during SBM

assessment. Rahabav & Que (2013) emphasized that feudalistic culture,
misconceptions about the role, not good governance, free education
campaigns and communication lame amplified the problem.
“School-based decision-making reforms appear to be less effective in

disadvantaged communities, particularly if parents and community members
have low levels of education and low status relative to school personnel.
Devolution also appears to be ineffective when communities choose not to
actively participate in decision-making processes. Small schools, however,
may find school-based decision-making to be effective, particularly if
community members establish a collaborative, rather than an adversarial,
relationship with teachers.” (Carr-Hill, et. al., 2014)
Methodology
This study used quantitative method of research. This descriptive study

involved 36 principals in the CAMANAVA area. These principals were chosen
based on their availability and willingness to participate in the study.
The researcher used a researcher-made instrument with indicators

taken from pertinent documents from the Department of Education and
findings from various literatures. The instrument was validated and was
subjected to a reliability test of Cronbach alpha. It contains 4 point Likert scale
from 1-4 with descriptions from very low extent to very high extent.
The researcher passed through channels in the conduct of the study.

Request letters and approval were properly sought. The researcher personally
administered the survey questionnaire and retrieved properly from the
respondents.
Simple statistical tool was used. It includes weighted mean and ranking.
Verbal interpretation is included in the interpretation of data.
Results
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A network of leadership and governance guides the education system

to achieve its shared vision, mission, and goals making them responsive and
relevant to the context of diverse environments (DO 83 s. 2012)
From the date the survey questionnaire was gathered, the results are
presented as follows.
Table 1
Challenges in the implementation of School-Based Management
in terms of Leadership and Governance
Leadership and Governance Indicators Mean Rank Interpretation SD
1. Inefficient monitoring and evaluation system 2.58 6.5 HE 0.73
2. Legal framework and performance standards 2.33 15.5 LE 0.72
lack clarity
3. Different interpretations of various orders, 2.39 12.5 LE 0.90
memoranda, and policies
4. Producing products of practice as means of 2.75 4 HE 0.81
verification
5. Excessive redundancy of documents 2.78 3 HE 1.05
6. Inadequate planning of SBM members 2.64 5 HE 0.90
7. Poor decision-making skills of team members 2.19 18 LE 0.75
8. Lack of competent educational managers 3.06 1 HE 0.75
9. Working situation of School Heads becomes 2.56 9.5 HE 0.91
more complex, demanding, and stressful
10. Capacity of education officials to 2.56 9.5 HE 0.81
institutionalize school-based management
11. Lack of information and training for school 2.92 2 HE 0.77
heads
12. Lack of information and training to teachers, 2.56 9.5 HE 0.91
parents, and/or students
13. Limited knowledge on Enhanced SBM of 2.39 12.5 LE 0.90
School Governing Council members
14. Limited authority of school heads and always 2.36 14 LE 0.99
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resort to the Superintendent's final say on

school affairs/fiscal matters
15. Lack of technical assistance from Division or 2.58 6.5 HE 0.91
Regional offices
16. Short tenure or transfer of school head tends 2.56 9.5 HE 0.73
to affect the progress and status of the
program
17. Principal or school heads self-concept of the 2.11 19 LE 0.78
position
18. Resistance from LGUs and other education 2.33 15.5 LE 1.04
officials to decentralization
19. Confusion on roles and responsibilities of 2.28 17 LE 0.94
school community
Overall Mean 2.52 HE
Legend: 1.0-1.49=Very Low Extent; 1.5-2.49=Low Extent; 2.5-3.49 High Extent; 3.5-4.0=Very High
Extent
Table 1 presented the interpretation of data on the challenges on the

implementation of SBM in terms of leadership and governance. It can be
noted that rank 1 was on lack of competent educational managers (x=3.06;
SD=0.75). The same dilemma still existed as supported by SIREP Report in
2012. This challenge was common not only in the Philippines but with other
neighboring countries as well, such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Timor-
Leste and Vietnam. The standard deviation of 0.75 indicates that the
responses of the respondents were very close to the mean score.
Second among the list of challenges in this dimension was lack of

information and training of school heads (x=2.92; SD=0.77). The results
showed that responses have low variance as indicated in the standard
deviation. The overall mean is 2.52 which imply that challenges on leadership
and governance fall under High Extent.
The curriculum learning systems anchored on the community and

learners’ context and aspirations are collaboratively developed and
continuously improved (DO 83 s. 2012).
Table 2
in terms of Curriculum and Instruction
Curriculum and Instruction Indicators Mean Rank Interpretation SD
20. Lack of knowledge of school community on
2.78 2 HE 0.81
SBM
21. Poor quality of education services 1.92 5 LE 0.91
22. Absence of contextualized criteria for
2.81 1 HE 0.79
assessment
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23. Absence of logical instrument to measure

2.69 3 HE 0.82
documents
24. Instructional leadership tasks is overly
deprived due to more administrative and 2.42 4 LE 0.94
financial activities
Legend: 1.0-1.49=Very Low Extent; 1.5-2.49=Low Extent; 2.5-3.49 High Extent; 3.5-4.0=Very
High Extent
Table 2 exhibited the assessment on the challenges in the

implementation of SBM in terms of curriculum and instruction. It was noted
that rank 1 was on absence of contextualized criteria for assessment with a
mean of 2.81 (HE). The result can be related to the study of Vicera and Bentor
(2013) wherein they found out that there was no signiﬁcant relationship
between the level of empowerment of school heads and: extent of SBM
implementation. It can be concluded that even if there was high awareness on
SBM among the school heads, this does not predict that there would be low or
fewer challenges in Curriculum and Instruction. The overall mean is 2.52
which imply that a curriculum and instruction challenges in the implementation
of SBM are at High Extent. The result can be attributed to the newly
implemented curriculum under Republic Act 10533 best known as the
Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013. Being new, the teachers have
undergone a series of seminars and training to come up with a birds- eye view
of the new curriculum.
A clear, transparent, inclusive, and responsive accountability system is

in place, collaboratively developed by the school community, which monitors
performance and acts appropriately on gaps and gains (DO 83 s. 2012).
Table 3
in terms of Accountability and Continuous Improvement
Accountability and Continuous Improvement Mean Rank Interpretation SD
Indicators
25. Reluctance among teachers to delegated
2.42 9 LE 0.97
work
26. Lack of communication from school to
2.89 3 HE 0.82
community and vice versa
27. Lack of trust among school community 2.58 7 HE 0.84
28. Lack of cooperation in the school 2.97 2 HE 0.88
29. Poor accountability and responsibility
2.64 5 HE 0.90
awareness of teachers
30. Low teamwork and cooperation in the school 2.83 4 HE 0.81
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31. Low capacity team building of SBM members

2.61 6 HE 0.84
and authorities
32. Lack of support and commitment from the
2.47 8 LE 0.94
local levels
33. SGC members poor attendance to meetings 3.06 1 HE 0.83
34. Resistance from teachers’ unions 1.97 10 LE 0.94
High Extent
Table 3 presents the assessment of the challenges in SBM

implementation in terms of accountability and continuous improvement. It can
be noted that rank 1 is on poor attendance to meetings of SGC members with
a mean of 3.06 (HE). The result is not surprising since most members of the
school governing council are working, it is difficult for the school heads to
gather perfect attendance among its members. A standard deviation of 0.83
denotes that the responses have low variance. The overall mean is 2.64
implies that accountability and continuous improvement challenges fall under
High Extent.
In management of resources, resources are collectively and judiciously
mobilized and managed with transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency (DO
83 s. 2012).
Table 4
in terms of Management of Resources
Management of Resources Indicators Mean Rank Interpretation SD
35. Poor community participation to school
2.39 4.5 LE 0.80
programs and activities
36. Lack of incentives and financial support to
2.67 2.5 HE 0.83
strategic programs
37. Insufficient knowledge and skills to handle
2.92 1 HE 0.84
fiscal management of key persons
38. Poor arts and skills to handle linkages 2.39 4.5 LE 0.84
39. Donor fatigue among stakeholders 2.31 7 LE 0.98
40. Interference of local politicians in school-led
2.28 8 LE 0.94
programs and projects
41. Parental belief that school-based
management is purely principal or school 2.67 2.5 HE 0.89
heads function
42. Financial and administrative activities require
2.33 6 LE 0.79
more time than instructional leadership
High Extent
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Table 4 shows the challenges in the implementation in terms of

management of resources. It can be noted that rank 1 is insufficient
knowledge and skills in fiscal management of key persons with a mean of 2.92
(HE). Lack of incentives and financial support to strategic programs and
parental belief that school-based management is purely school head’s function
(x=2.5) posed as challenges to SBM implementation. The overall mean is 2.50
implied that challenges on management of resources are assessed with High
Extent.
Table 5
Summary of the Challenges on the implementation
of School-Based Management in CAMANAVA
SBM Dimensions Mean Rank Interpretation
1. Leadership and Governance 2.52 2.5 HE
2. Curriculum and Learning 2.52 2.5 HE
3. Accountability and Continuous Improvement 2.64 1 HE
4. Management of Resources 2.50 4 HE
Grand Mean 2.55 High Extent
High Extent
Table 5 presented the summary of the challenges on the

implementation of SBM. The highest in rank was on Accountability and
Continuous Improvement (x=2.64) followed by Leadership and Governance
and Curriculum and Learning (x=2.52) and the last in rank was on
Management of Resources (x=2.50). The grand mean, 2.55, implied that
challenges on SBM implementation are at High Extent.
Discussion
The results of the study revealed that challenges in SBM

implementation as assessed by the principal respondents would be
considered at High Extent.
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It is interesting to consider that in leadership and governance, the

number 1 challenge is on lack of competent educational managers. This may
be corroborated by Cranston (2012) in his study on SBM that the roles and
responsibilities of school heads change, bringing major challenges for them as
both leaders and managers of their schools; the skills and capacities of school
heads within such operational models change, whereby school heads are
required to demonstrate an enhanced set of abilities compared with that
evident under more traditional modes of operation; and various complex
challenges for school heads emerge, which include tensions between
increased devolution and greater accountability and a reluctance among some
teachers to embrace devolution and take on greater levels of responsibility
and accountability. Added to this challenge is that the working situation of
school heads had become more complex, demanding, and stressful (Hallinger,
2001; Robinson et al, 2008, Leithwood, 2010), lack of information and training
to school heads. (Al-Ghefeili, Ghani, & Muhamad, 2013) which might be a
cause for excessive paper works accomplishing school reports, checking,
reviewing, communicating among others which contributed to the challenges
on leadership and governance.
While in the challenges on curriculum and instruction, findings revealed

that the absence of contextualized criteria for assessment lay on the top
notch. The diverse topology, diverse stakeholders, diverse culture of pupils
requires different assessments. A three-year quantum leap increase in
enrollment is quite impossible for a highly congested school with low
availability of classrooms. In the same way, achievement rate cannot be used
as assessment for SBM if national achievement tests were done in random.
As second in rank, the lack of knowledge of school community on SBM.

School heads find that leading their communities through the change process
and facilitate cultural change while at the same time responding to greater
accountability demands from the system. Another dilemma is the absence of
logical instrument to measure documents whether they belong to which level.
Educational leadership has largely given way to managerial activities (AL-
Ghefeili & Hoque, 2013) which deprived them sometimes to exercise their
power as instructional and curriculum leader. As a result, school autonomy
is therefore often regarded as necessary but deficits in
conditions for bringing about a school-based curriculum, and
for making SBM fruitful for teaching and learning.
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Findings also revealed that in the SBM challenges in terms of

accountability and continuous improvement, the school heads assessed the
challenges as high extent. SGC poor attendance to meetings remains as the
most challenging part (Ayeni & Ibukun, 2013). However, a myriad of factors
resulted to this, such as poor communication, not clear agenda, lack of trust
among school community, (Adolphine, 2008; Gertler, et. al, 2007), lack of
cooperation in the school (Bandur, 2012; Ayeni & Ibukun, 2013), poor
accountability and responsibility awareness of teachers (Anila, 2016), low
teamwork and cooperation in the school (Mizel, 2009) among others. . Parents
who live in communities where violence is endemic participate less in the
school councils (McNamara, 2010). The principals’ accountability may have
been evident in many aspects of school system, but the continuous
improvement of programs, projects and activities remain blurry.
And finally, the challenges on SBM implementation in terms of

management of resources are High Extent. Findings revealed that insufficient
knowledge and skills to handle fiscal management of key persons will have an
impact to the learners. The government has allocated an enormous amount of
money for the education sector during last the few decades to ensure the
highest quality of education for the learners. Therefore school finance has to
be managed strategically to conform the best educational outcome through
effective resource allocation. In public elementary schools, the finance officers
are classroom teachers who have gained basic knowledge on accounting
procedures through trainings and workshops. These are sufficient considering
the enormous amount and the documentary procedures being undertaken
during liquidation of expenses, tax computations and other necessary
documents. A bookkeeper or a disbursing officer in every elementary school
can best contribute to the attainment of highest SBM implementation.
Conclusion
Principals struggle with the challenge they faced on how to build school
system that improve practice in an era of heightened accountability and
increasingly complex adaptive challenges. The principals who overcome the
challenges in leadership and governance, curriculum and instruction,
accountability and continuous improvement, and management of resources
are great leaders in this time of transformation. Though the challenges posed
in this study are not very alarming, it calls for great accountability that
principals should overcome the challenges and lessen the occurrence of
problems that may interfere in the school-based management. Consequently,
xi
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findings revealed that challenges are at low extent, they may not be
eradicated in the educational system, and hence school heads must be ready
to face these challenges in the implementation of SBM.
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DC. © World Bank.
BY 3.0 IGO
DO No. 83 s. 2012 Implementing Guidelines on the Revised chool-based

Management (SBM) Framework, Assessment, Process and Tool (APAT)
DepEd Order No. 7 s. 2015 Hiring Guidelines for Teacher I Positions effective
SY 2015-2016
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Chapter 5
General Discussion
This chapter presents the general discussion of the significant findings

of the study contained in chapters 2-4. The study on the challenges on SBM
implementation showed that the Philippine educational system particularly in
the CAMANAVA has a very promising future.
In the assessment of the awareness and views of the CAMANAVA

principals in the implementation of the school-based management, the results
have shown that school heads are Highly Aware in all four areas. Evidently
and as expected, they must be adept in Leadership and Governance so as to
handle multifarious tasks. Aside from being a policy-driven organization, the
high results can be attributed to the virtual accessibility of the policies,
memoranda, orders, and circulars. Gone are the days that the memos are
cascaded through channels. In this modern era, anyone can simply download
the copies of documents from the website.

xi
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the learning systems that are regularly and collaboratively monitored by the
development of the learners and the community. The schools heads know that
learning systems should be in place; however the appropriate tools for regular
and collaborative monitoring still remain obscure.

improvement (Coca, 2015). It is in this line that CI’s context is integrated in the
learning environment to better respond to the changing times and to mobilize
the vision of shaping a culture that will have direct and relevant impact to the
learners. However, being a new program in partnership with Basic Education
Sector Transformation (BEST), this dimension ranked last.

rated Highly Aware in all indicators. In a similar study conducted in Israel (Arar,
Amal, 2016), awareness to SBM yielded positive improvements in budget
management in schools that begin to implement it. However in Iran (Saeid
Moradi et. al, 2012), their main concern in implementing SBM is allocating
financial resources to schools and on how to properly manage these funds.
Certain areas in the discussion of fiscal leadership are changing but core
values such as the importance of honesty and integrity remain constant
(Prentice, 2013).
In addition, the views of the principal-respondents on the above

variables yielded a theme called “Dimensions of School-based Management”.
These are the leading dimension, the learning dimension, the valuing
dimension, and the creating dimension.
While on the status of SBM practice as of January 31, 2018, there were
34 participating schools which were anonymously indexed in this study. As
revealed, the highest in rank in terms of frequency counts are those that are
under Level 1 with 16 out of 34 schools or 47.059% and are classified as
Developing. Developing schools according to DepEd Order 83 s. 2012 are
schools that have developed structures and mechanisms with acceptable level
and extent of community participation, and impact on learning outcomes.
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It is very interesting to note that aside from the assessment on the

status of SBM practices, through the images created by the respondents,
themes emerged called SBM Practices: Faces, Phases, and Paces.
Sample images were taken from the descriptions of the principal-

respondents which are essential in this study. To represent the face (the
feature of SBM) of the SBM status, principal respondent used the united-
holding hands image of stakeholders which means that collaboration is
needed. For the phase (the process of SBM) it is represented by a tower that
symbolizes the strength of the organization, and for the pace (the rate of
SBM), the infant which is symbolic for growth and development.
Moreover, the challenges in the implementation of SBM revealed that

in leadership and governance, the number 1 challenge is on lack of competent
educational managers, consistent with SIREP report (2012). This has been
complemented with capability building programs, but constant modification of
the roles and responsibilities of school heads, with the overarching
expectations of being a leader and a manager, or both most of the times. The
skills and capacities of school heads within such operational models change,
whereby school heads are required to demonstrate an enhanced set of
abilities compared with that evident under more traditional modes of operation;
and various complex challenges for school heads emerge, which include
tensions between increased devolution and greater accountability. Excessive
redundancy of documents (Anila, 2016) lessens the efficiency rate of a school
system. This may be corroborated by other factors like inefficient monitoring
and evaluation system (SIREP Report, 2012), different interpretations of
various orders, memoranda, and policies (Al-Ghefeili, Ghani, & Muhamad,
2013), lack of competent educational managers (SIREP Report, 2012),
working situation of School Heads becomes more complex, demanding, and
stressful (Hallinger, 2001; Robinson et al, 2008, Leithwood, 2010), lack of
information and training to teachers, parents, and/or students. (Al-Ghefeili,
Ghani, & Muhamad, 2013) which might be a cause for excessive paper works
accomplishing school reports, checking, reviewing, communicating among
others which contributed to the challenges on leadership and governance.
While in the challenges on curriculum and instruction, findings reveal

that the absence of contextualized criteria for assessment has severely
affected the SBM implementation. If there is contextualization of teaching and
learning, the same would be expected in terms of assessment of documents.
Another challenge that deeply beset the implementation is that instructional
leadership tasks are overly deprived due to more administrative and financial
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activities (Lindberg & Vanyushyn, 2013; Ayeni & Ibukun, 2013). School heads
find that leading their communities through the change process and facilitate
cultural change while at the same time responding to greater accountability
demands from the system. Educational leadership has largely given way to
managerial activities (AL-Ghefeili & Hoque, 2013) which deprived them
sometimes to exercise their power as instructional and curriculum leader.
Findings also revealed that in the SBM challenges in terms of

accountability and continuous improvement, the principals assessed the
challenges as High Extent. This is evident in SGC members’ poor attendance
to meetings (Ayeni & Ibukun, 2013) which may be caused by poor
communication, not clear agenda, lack of trust among school community,
(Adolphine, 2008; Gertler, et. al, 2007), lack of cooperation in the school
(Bandur, 2012; Ayeni & Ibukun, 2013), poor accountability and responsibility
awareness of teachers (Anila, 2016), low teamwork and cooperation in the
school (Mizel, 2009) among others. The principals’ accountability is evident in
many aspects of school system. The principal is still regarded as the heart and
soul of the school system. The success of the schools programs, projects and
activities has always been attributed to the skillful leadership abilities of the
school head.
And finally, the findings on challenges on SBM implementation in terms

of management of resources revealed that there was insufficient knowledge
and skills of key persons in handling fiscal resources. This is supported by
World Bank (2016) study that there was inability of school heads to raise
sufficient resources to carry out the activities included in their school
improvement plans. Another major impediment was that parents believe that
school heads were the only key players as educational enterprise and that
they were not aware of their contribution to the school. Poor community
participation to school programs and activities (SIREP Report, 2012) will have
an impact to the learners. Parents who know what is happening in school
created an atmosphere of participation. Another study reported that parental
belief that school-based management is purely school heads function (Fiske,
1996; Winkler, 1989) and this can be addressed by involving parents in
school-based management in some areas which they are needed.
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Chapter 6
What this paper adds
This pioneering study on the Challenges of SBM Implementation: Basis

for Policy Recommendations has significantly contributed to the existing body
of knowledge in school-based management. There were many variables
explored which include the level of awareness and views of SBM
implementation, the status of SBM practice and its challenges. Initially, during
the conceptualization of the study, the direction of this study is to consider the
findings of the study for policy recommendation but since challenges, rated as
High extent, were the same challenges from previous assessments conducted
by SIREP (2012) and World Bank (2016), the direction of the study has
changed and evolved in the formulation of a proposed Integrated SBM System
Model.
The model below illustrates the connections of the variables in the

study. A system is a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole
or an organized scheme. Hence, at the center of the model is the heart of
School-based Management which is connected with three important variables
in the study: the level of awareness and views of SBM implementation, the
status of SBM practice and challenges of SBM. The challenges are connected
with the status of SBM implementation. If these challenges are not mitigated,
the level of implementation would remain low. These two factors are also
linked with the practices. This interconnectedness creates the system to which
SBM is implemented. To fully achieve the highest level which is advanced,
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challenges must be addressed by overcoming the occurrence of these

challenges. Thus, full implementation would mean growth and development.
Figure 1: Proposed Integrated SBM System Model

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Accountability and Continuous Improvement – refers to a clear,

transparent, inclusive and responsive system is in place, collaboratively
developed by the school community, which monitors performance and
acts appropriately on gaps and gains.
Awareness – knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.
Challenge – a problem; something new and difficult which requires great effort
and determination (Collins Dictionary).
Advanced
Creating – cause something to happen as a result of one’s actions
Maturing
Curriculum and Instruction – the curriculum and learning systems anchored
on the community and Developing
learner’s contexts and aspirations are
collaboratively developed and continuously improved.
Decentralization - is the process of distributing functions, powers, people or

things away from a central location or authority to local levels
Dimension – refers to a feature of school-based management
Fiscal Management – is the act of managing incoming and outgoing

monetary transactions and budgets for governments, educational
institutions, non-profit organizations, and other public service entities
(SHDP-NEAPHand-out).
Leadership and Governance – a network of leadership and governance

guides the education system to achieve its shared vision, mission, and
goals making them responsive and relevant to the diverse to the
context of diverse environments.
Leading – refers to an example for others to follow; provides guidance;

leadership
Learning – refers to the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience,

study, or by being taught.
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Management of Resources – resources are collectively and judiciously

mobilized and managed with transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency
School-based Management - is the systematic decentralization to the school

level of authority and responsibility to make decisions on significant
matters related to school operations within a centrally determined
framework of goals, policies, curriculum, standards, and accountability
(Caldwell, 2005)
Status – refers to the level or standing of something, an activity, or a program

like school-based management as used in this study.
Valuing – refers to a feeling of consideration or importance to someone or

something.
Views - refers to a particular way of considering or regarding something; an

attitude or opinion towards something.
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CURRICULUM VITAE
Gina Juanitez Tolledo was born in Guindag-an, Tanauan, Leyte, Philippines.
She was the fourth child in a family of eight siblings of Mr. Candido Delloro
Juanitez and Clarita Nicol Cabiltes. She is married to Mr. Onofre Tenoria
Tolledo with whom she had three children: Syber Blaise, Syril Benedict, and
Stephen Byron.
She finished her elementary from Naga-Naga Elementary School, and her
secondary education from St. Mary’s Academy of Palo, Leyte. She took up
Bachelor in Elementary Education specializing Mathematics and finished cum
laude from Leyte Normal University. She finished Master of Arts in Education
major in Administration and Supervision from Metro Manila College. At
present, she is a candidate for Doctor of Philosophy major in Educational
Management at the University of Caloocan City.
She served as an Instructor at Leyte Normal University in 1996-1997. In

October, 1997, they moved to Caloocan with her siblings and taught at Sto.
Niño Elementary School starting June, 1998. She became a Master I in 2006
and Master Teacher II in 2011. She also passed the National Qualifying
Examination for School Heads in December, 2006. She served as Assistant to
the Principal in the same school. In 2013, she was transferred to Cayetano
Arellano Elementary School as Officer-in-Charge. She became Principal I in
September 2013, Principal 2 in 2015 and Principal 3 on May 2, 2017. At
present, she is the school principal of Morning Breeze Elementary School,
Caloocan City.
During her free time, she enjoys sewing shorts and shirts for her children,
crochets doyles, or simply drives her children to and from school. She is a
nature lover and finds beaches as a highly relaxing getaway.
At present, she is the English, Journalism and SBM Consultant of Tanque

District. She actively serves as a facilitator at the National Educators Academy
of the Philippines (NEAP), an author of SC Mardison Publishing Company,
and a Board of Director of Philippine Elementary School Principals Association
of Caloocan (PESPAC).

School-Based Management - Awareness, Views, and Challenges

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UNIVERSITY OF CALOOCAN CITY Page

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

This dissertation entitled SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT:

WARREN A. RAMOS, Ed. D.

This Dissertation-by-Article entitled SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT:

FLORENCIA C. DOMINGO, Ph. D. ROGER A. MORALLOS, Ph. D.

DIEGO A. AMID, Ph. D. ROSARIO C. DE OCERA, Ed. D.

JOEL P. FELICIANO, Ph. D., DPA

Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of

MELCHOR S. JULIANES, LPT, Ed. D., Ph. D., DPA

I also declare that the intellectual content of this dissertation is the

WARREN A. RAMOS, Ed. D.

UNIVERSITY OF CALOOCAN CITY

This is to certify that I have edited this Doctoral manuscript entitled

School-Based Management: Awareness, Views, and Challenges

LILIAN B. ENRIQUEZ, Ed. D.

In particular, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the following:

Dr. Warren A. Ramos, my Dissertation adviser for the persistent

The highly intellectual panel members Dr. Florencia C. Domingo, Dr.

The Superintendents of SDO Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and

My fellow school heads in SDO-Caloocan, my DEM A classmates, and

My special words of gratitude to our indefatigable City Mayor Hon.

To our dear University President Atty. Rene Richard A. Salazar for

To all whom I failed to mention, who encouraged me and keep me

I humbly dedicate this dissertation to my husband, Nof Tolledo,

I also dedicate this output to my parents Candido and Clarita Juanitez

CONTENTS DESCRIPTION PAGE

SBM: What’s in a word?

School based management (SBM) is a worldwide education reform to

The findings on the challenges of SBM implementation in four

Key words: School-based Management, SBM implementation, SBM challenges

We must adjust to changing times

School based management (SBM) is a worldwide education reform

School-based management is the systematic decentralization to the

The shift in paradigm is attributed to the advancement of technology

Looking retrospectively at the history of Philippine educational system,

School-based management (SBM) is the institutional expression of the

development by enabling local communities to become self-reliant and more

In 1999, DECS Order No. 230, further defined decentralization to mean:

With the approval of the five-year Medium-term Philippine Development

Moreover, the enactment of Republic Act 9155 otherwise known as the

To accelerate the SBM Program Implementation Plan, the Department

Deped Order 64 series of 2012 installed a Quality Assurance System to

Accreditation is a quality assurance method. Through the accreditation

To further strengthen the School-Based Management (SBM) practice

In a study conducted by PETS-QSDS in 2014, most schools in the

In a study conducted by SEAMEO Innotech Regional Education

With these in mind, the researcher has undertaken the challenges or

Hence, from the evolving picture of school-based implementation, the

1.3. Accountability and Continuous Improvement

Chapter 2 presented the status of SBM practice among public

Chapter 3 identified the level of awareness and views of principals in

Chapter 4 focused on the challenges encountered by principals in the

Chapter 5 presented a general discussion of the findings of the study

Chapter 6 elaborated on what this research has added as a contribution

Significance of the Study

Learners. The results of this study would redound to the betterment of

Policy makers. The research findings might be used as bases for

Educational Administrators. This study would strengthen the premise

Parents. The results of this study would motivate the parents to

External Stakeholders. This study reinforces that School-based

and continually maintain partnerships to ensure success of academic

Researcher. The researcher as school head would improve her