Contribution of District Transformation Program and Change Commitment toward Development of School Leaders Capacity and Quality of Teaching

Abstract

The Ministry of Education Malaysia has launched the Regional Transformation Program to work with the District Education Offices to develop leaders’ professionalism in schools and quality of teaching to improve the nation’s education performance. This research is conducted to identify the level of implementation of the District Transformation Programme, level of change commitment and impact on Leadership Capacity Building in Schools and quality of teaching. A descriptive survey study was used to collect information on the three dimensions of PPD transformation implementation and change commitment while the inference from the survey study was used to identify the impact of PPD’s transformation on the development of school leadership capabilities and the impact of change commitment on the quality of teaching. A total of 400 respondents consisting of education service officers from 13 PPDs in Malaysia were randomly selected. The findings show that the three dimensions of PPD transformation implementation and change Commitment are at a very high level. The findings also show that the implementation of this district transformation program is very relevant to help improve leadership capabilities in schools when the Re-Enculturation contributes 19.6% (β = .291; t = 5.759; p = .000). Furthermore, the Guidance and Mentorship Management accounted for 5.1% (β = .221; t = 4.294; p = .000). Meanwhile, the restructuring dimension contributed by 1.6% (β = .138; t = 2.967; p = .003). Change commitment is very relevant to improve the quality of teaching, affective commitment contributes 15.7% (β = .307; t = 6.228; p = .000), normative commitment contributes 3.4% (β = .198; t = 4.026; p = .000) and continuation commitment contributes .9% (β = - .096; t = 4.026; p = .033). Nevertheless, research on the quality of school leadership is yet to be implemented to ensure that the government’s aim to place high quality leaders in every school in Malaysia is realized.