Challenges in Leading Secondary Schools

January 13, 2021 Educator's Corner JUST IN

Leading the secondary schools has a unique leadership in some areas that differs from the elementary which may be influenced by the leadership level due the nature of the internal stakeholders which includes the faculty members, the non-teaching staff, the curriculum and the learners. On the part of the teaching staff they have their own field of specialization which may be categorized in to language, math, science, PE, Technology and Livelihood Education, MAPEH and Edukasyong Pagpapakatao.
The non-teaching usually the support staff in the school administration and they may be assigned as bookkeeper, cashier, utility personnel, administrative aide, security guards, librarians and nurse. The learners are now in their secondary level with a higher order of comprehension and analysis on both the curriculum and co-curricular offerings in the school, thus the teaching strategies, approaches needed to be inclined and teachers at this level has to be psychologically aware not to underscore the level of competence of learners but rather be more equipped on the curriculum requirement to meet the challenging need of the learners.
The presence of the senior high school is one of the unique features in the secondary schools, learners are considered to be in the college level. Due to this set-up of learning, the school leadership in the secondary is seemingly related in the management set up of the tertiary level which is the exit point of learners after finishing the senior high school. The Department of Education on the other hand rendered special course offering to school heads in the leading the secondary schools and the senior high school however, due to the limited resource, in some instances schools heads which are not trained are assigned to schools who have senior high school.
Considering the huge preparation of the secondary school teachers and the school heads in order to the manage effectively the school and meeting the demand of learners, the salary is just the same in the elementary which is all part of basic education. But try to look at the salary grade in the tertiary education wherein the entry level of an instructor is salary grade 14 and only salary grade 11 for teacher 1 in DepEd.
The rationale of having a slight difference on the salary if possible of the secondary should be higher than elementary is because of the progression of knowledge from simple to complex, meaning teachers are being paid supposedly in accordance to their level or the knowledge structure. This include also the school head of the secondary as compared to the school of the elementary.
The school head requires if possible to be multi-disciplinary to understand the needs of other teachers to address the need in order to be holistic in managing the academic requirement in the school system. The management style of the school administrator sometimes reflects the good and the negative aspects in some instances.
By: Daniel W. Tayaban
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