by Marina D. Tabangcura
Many schools continue to face challenges in defining the meaning, purpose, and content of basic education in the context of this pandemic and our fast-changing world. The huge diversity of contexts makes performances and achievements difficult to assess and compare. The volume of challenges increases as the landscape of education changes. That is why educators underscored the need for better governance of the education system so they can respond more effectively to the diverse and continuously changing educational needs of learners.
The effectiveness of the school system depends to a large extent on the competence, commitment, service, and perspective of teachers. They are the ones who carry out the mission and who endeavor to accomplish the goals of schools. As teaching becomes professionalized, teachers become empowered, such that teacher groups become the dominant source of power in the modern school organization. They are the primary implementers of quality education.
Teacher empowerment is reflected in an environment where teachers act as professionals and are treated as such with the power to make instructional decisions especially during this pandemic. In providing learning opportunities to the learners through blended distance learning modalities, the teachers’ knowledge, and understanding of, as well as respect for, learners’ diverse characteristics and experiences are recognized in planning and designing learning programs and activities for better effectiveness.
Empowerment in instruction gives more decision-making responsibility in the hands of the teachers.
The schools should be evolving from the top and then down in the organizational hierarchy for a more collaborative, collegial, and participative form of leadership so the teachers will be given opportunities to engage actively, openly and without fear in the endless process of shaping the vision of the schools and their educational culture. By their active engagement in the process and by being personally committed to intended outcomes, teachers are stimulated to increase their awareness of both the larger mission of schools and the connection of their own daily mundane work to the achievement of the mission.
With the limited human and financial resources available and the current situation that we are in, it is of utmost importance to mobilize efforts and capabilities toward good governance or management. Institutional reforms to support empowerment of teachers are urgently needed. The reforms should focus on investing in people’s assets and capabilities and the collective capacity to organize, to enable them to participate actively in responding to the basic needs and rights of every learner.**
