The impact of a leadership training program on school based management and school community action in Praya Barat Daya, Lombok, Indonesia

The impact of a leadership training program on school based management and school community action in Praya Barat Daya, Lombok, Indonesia

Indonesia decentralized its education system in January 2001 requiring all schools to become self managing at their local level. Training was put in place to assist schools with tasks that would facilitate this process such as writing School Development Plans and establishing the newly mandated School Committees. However no specific plans emerged to provide schools with training in educational leadership. Understanding and practising leadership goes hand in hand with understanding the nuances of decentralization. A different style of leadership is required to make sense of decentralization, a style of leadership that does not rely upon top-down authority but instead shares leadership across the school community and encourages leadership to emanate from below. In 2004 a leadership training project was undertaken in three rural school communities in Central Lombok. Its purpose was to consider the emergence of new leadership practices when schools are given the opportunity to be involved in leadership training across a six month period. The leadership training project was attached to a current Aid project to gauge the appropriateness of including a leadership training program in future Aid projects. Within Indonesia Aid projects from a range of international donors are a frequent source of enhancing physical and teaching and learning environments in schools. The leadership training project commenced with a two day live in workshop followed by six months in-school experience, which involved school and individual projects to practise leadership. The design included six-weekly site visits and all participants maintained a weekly reflective journal. The data collected was presented in the form of case studies of each of the three schools, which were subsequently used to inform a Report presented to the Indonesian Ministry of National Education. Findings presented in this Report affirm that a leadership training program of this nature does provide a valuable way forward through training in school leadership practices that allow school communities to effectively work within a school based management environment. This Report recommended that the trialled leadership training program would be a valuable inclusion in future educational AID projects throughout Indonesia.