Malaysian Islamic Secondary School Leaders’ Leadership Challenges

Zunaidi Harun, Muhammad Faizal A Ghani — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This study aims to explore the Malaysian Islamic secondary school (SMA) leaders’ leadership challenges. To respond to the study's aim, a qualitative method using interviews was applied to seven leaders of Islamic Secondary Schools. The informers were selected based on some criteria such as the length of service as a leader and leadership knowledge. The data that were analyzed using thematic analysis reported seven challenges of Malaysian Islamic secondary school leaders’ leadership, namely: (i) lack of knowledge, in particular, the field of school management such as finance, IT, asset, data, and information, (ii) lack of management skill to figure out conflicts regarding incentive differences among senior and novice teachers, (iii) lack of collaboration among stakeholders, (iv) need to allocate more finance for the competency development program such as enhancing novice teachers’ pedagogical skills, (v) Inadequate planning of valuable program for students residing in hostel, (vi) less concern to support some Ministry of Education’s policies, and (vii) less concern on the changing environment, in particular, the field of pedagogical changes for the post of COVID-19 pandemic. The implication of this study is to be aware for the educational stakeholders, in particular, the school leaders, to take into account this study's findings to make self-improvement to enhance the students learning and school achievement.

Development of Cross-Cultural Leadership Model (m2cL) For Malaysian School Leaders

Zatun Najahah Saari, Muhammad Faizal A. Ghani — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In Malaysia, the field of education is the heart of society and the country to achieve the best educational development goals. Therefore, as an effort to achieve global competition in the world of education, the Malaysian Ministry of Education has taken steps through the Malaysian Education Development Plan (PPPM) in the fifth wave (2015 - 2025) which is that every school must place high-performing leaders (PPPM 2015- 2025). This study aims to design and develop a cross-cultural leadership model based on the local context under the needs of school leaders in Malaysia. In addition, this model is suggested to school leaders to be used as a guideline in the administration that covers various races and cultures, especially in school organizations. Therefore, this model should reflect the components and elements that are appropriate to the needs of school leaders. The lack of cross-cultural leadership components appropriate to local situations is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently. Thus, after seeing the dynamic transformation of education nowadays, improvements according to the current needs for the future are very necessary. Therefore, for this study, the researcher applied the Fuzzy Delphi Technique which aims to obtain expert consensus to identify the position of elements in each dimension of cross-cultural leadership of school leaders in the local context. In this study, 23 experts were involved in the design and development phase. Therefore, in this study, a questionnaire instrument was used for that purpose. Data were analyzed quantitatively. Findings from this study successfully produced the m2cL Model that can be used as a guide for school leaders, especially schools that consist of members of various cultures and backgrounds.

Management Research Journal

Malaysian Islamic Secondary School Leaders’ Leadership Challenges

Development of Cross-Cultural Leadership Model (m2cL) For Malaysian School Leaders