ADVERSITIES AND CHALLENGES IN SCHOOL

Rachel P. Balajadia

Education in the Philippines is faced with different changes and innovations due to the programs of the government which aims to globalize the competency of its clienteles. The Department of Education (DepEd) modified a new curriculum that will provide every Filipino pupil with a global standard of education. However, together with these reforms are many shortcomings and adversities.

In the country, educational systems are tremendously challenging particularly in the managerial, technical, and financial competence of government, and, thus, as a service, education is too complex to be capably produced and distributed in a centralized fashion. Thus, the government adopts this improvement to decentralize the power to the school level. Responsibility and decisionmaking over school operations are transferred to school principals, teachers, parents, sometimes students, and other school stakeholders. However, school leaders have to conform to, or operate, within a set of centrally determined policies by the Department of Education. Nowadays, SchoolBased Management (SBM) is being widely practiced. It transfers authority over one or more of the following activities to the school principals and school heads: budget allocation through MOOE’s, hiring of teachers and other school staff, curriculum development, textbook and other educational material procurement, infrastructure improvement, setting the school calendar to better meet the specific needs of the local community, and monitoring and evaluation of teacher performance and student learning outcomes. Faced with this new challenge, the school principals are more prone to adversity than anyone in the field.

According to Fiorino (2007), principals are the recognized leaders in a school. They have been entrusted with authorities, responsibilities and accountabilities in the success or failures of the institution. Their position is significant to the educational development and academic growth and performance of the pupils; because the principal is usually the major source and the driving force who upholds the welfare of the organization. As leaders in the field of education, the school principals have been entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that the school runs efficiently and pupils are provided with the best and quality education that at the end becomes the indispensable workforce of the community and the country.

Adversity can be an opportunity to strengthen the thoughts of a person and establish one’s achievements. Surpassing any adverse events in life will lead a person to better way of understanding a problem. Adversity can strengthen a person’s decision-making over indefinite events in every situation.

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The author is Teacher III at San Pablo Elementary School, Santa Ana District