Words Misunderstood? - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Words Misunderstood?

Understanding the role of discourse in Philippine basic education reform

Mary Jocelyn R. dela Cruz

Political Science Department

De La Salle University, PhilippinesSlide2

School-Based Management

has yet to empower because:

LSB’s structural configuration

Lack of intensive local capacity building

Conceptual confusion on SBMSlide3

Objective

To

e

xplore the interplay of ideas, discourses, actions, and institutions in the context of reforming the Philippine basic education systemSlide4

Ideas

Discourse

Rules

Institutions

ActionsSlide5

School-Based Management

Mechanism to decentralize decision-making authorities to the school levelTo empower principal, teachers and other stakeholders to identify and resolve local school problems

Ownership

 AccountabilitySlide6

Introducing SBM

EDCOM Report

1991

Education decentralization principles

BEAM

2002-2007

Flexible & cooperative learning environment

TEEP

1998-2006

detour from decentralizing supply of inputsSlide7

SBM was contained

Dependence on foreign-assisted projects

Pilot projects to national implementation

Institutional incapacity to initiate & continue reforms

Organizationally displaced offices restrained knowledge generationSlide8

“The

DepEd

bureaucracy lives (and dies) by the

DepEd

Memo and this is so ingrained in the system that administrators and school heads will wait for these rather than act on their own.” (Luz, 2008/2009)Slide9

“No

Memo,

No

Action

”

Self-legitimizes DepEd as a reform-oriented institution

Continuity of textual production contradicts to the very idea of SBMSlide10

A discourse of a centralized structure

As a result of rigid hierarchical structures with limited resources, the effect of policies that require the surrender of authority is limited.

Democratizing decision-making processes within a local school board that is configured to decide on a top-down approach.Slide11

De facto adoption of SBM

SBM is adopted through DepEd

projects instead of a clear congressional legislation.

Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001 (Republic Act No. 9155) was not formulated based on the lessons learned in TEEP and BEAM, but through EDCOM Report. Slide12

RA 9155:

A struggle between SBM and ‘centralist’ discourses

School Level

WB’s TEEP

Budget allocation

HR management

Curriculum and Infra

Dev’t

Division Level

RA 9155

National LevelSlide13

While it is within the

DepEd’s

intention to legitimize its efforts to let go of its authorities according to changing rules and discourse that favors school empowerment, the manner by which such legitimation is executed reaffirms

DepEd’s

acknowledgement of its concentrated authority over its lower levels. Slide14

SBM in fragmented grounds

District-Level Director

SBM is misconceived by some principals as a license to be ‘free as a bird’ against the division level’s control.

Principals are incapable to manage the school on their own.Slide15

SBM in fragmented grounds

School Principal

SBM is just another central office’s directive that should be complies so as not to receive unwanted sanctions.

“Centralized policies worked before. Why can’t it work now?”Slide16

Exacerbated by the

DepEd’s

prohibition on conducting personnel trainings outside the academic calendar, the articulation, deliberation and legitimation of SBM in the education reform discourse are being seriously shortchanged

. Slide17

Reflections for now

The actions of various actors carrying SBM ideas can still struggle to push changes within the discourse, for as long as the legitimacy of such actors is recognized, and the ideas he transmitted receives consensual validation, while the manner by which he conveyed these ideas is coercive enough to be remembered and valued by

others.