SEA school leaders develop capacity on stakeholder engagement thru SELM

With the rapid changes in the education landscape, the skills expected from a school leader grows as well. This year’s offering of the SEAMEO INNOTECH Regional Scholarship for Education Leaders and Managers (SELM) focused on the competency strand, Stakeholder Engagement, one of the 5 competency domains under the 2014 Competency Framework for School Heads.

From 1 to 9 March 2018, 30 school heads from 10 SEAMEO member countries participated in the face-to-face part of the program. This SELM aims to strengthen the leadership and management capacities of education leaders in promoting shared responsibility for school improvement, convening education alliances and networks, and sustaining collaborative relationships with stakeholders, like the parents and the community, in order to bring their schools to a new level of excellence.

Through the week-long program, the school heads were introduced to the current and emerging challenges and opportunities in engaging the community. Participants also had the chance to share best practices that they already do in their respective schools and learn from each other.

The program also introduced ways on how the participants can assess the school environment and identify their priority areas. They also discussed about building and sustaining relationships with stakeholders, as well as creating arrangements, structures, and mechanisms between the school and community.

As an output, the participants were asked to develop an action strategy in engaging their different stakeholders. This plan is expected to be rolled out in their respective schools and evaluated during the last phase of the program.

This face-to-face learning intervention is the Phase 2 of the SELM program. Phase 1 which is an online pre-course conversation happened last 5 to 16 February 2018, while Phase 3 which is on the application of their learning is to be delivered and monitored online from 9 to 14 April 2018.