Words
Misunderstood?
Understanding the role of
discourse in Philippine basic
education reform
Mary Jocelyn R. dela Cruz
Political Science Department
De La Salle University, Philippines
School-Based Management
has yet to empower because:
LSB’s structural configuration
Lack of intensive local capacity
building
Conceptual confusion on SBM
Objective
To explore the interplay of ideas, discourses,
actions, and institutions in the context of
reforming the Philippine basic education
system
Ideas
Actions
Discourse
Rules
Institutions
School-Based Management
 Mechanism
to decentralize decisionmaking authorities to the school level
 To empower principal, teachers and other
stakeholders to identify and resolve local
school problems
 Ownership  Accountability
Introducing SBM
EDCOM
Report
• 1991
• Education decentralization
principles
BEAM
• 2002-2007
• Flexible & cooperative
learning environment
TEEP
• 1998-2006
• detour from
decentralizing
supply of inputs
SBM was contained
Dependence on foreign-assisted projects
Pilot projects to national implementation
Institutional incapacity to initiate & continue reforms
Organizationally displaced offices restrained
knowledge generation
“The DepEd bureaucracy lives (and dies) by
the DepEd Memo and this is so ingrained in
the system that administrators and school
heads will wait for these rather than act on
their own.” (Luz, 2008/2009)
“No
Memo,
No
Action”
Self-legitimizes DepEd as a
reform-oriented institution
Continuity of textual
production contradicts to
the very idea of SBM
A discourse of a centralized
structure
 As
a result of rigid hierarchical structures
with limited resources, the effect of
policies that require the surrender of
authority is limited.
 Democratizing
decision-making processes
within a local school board that is
configured to decide on a top-down
approach.
De facto adoption of SBM
 SBM
is adopted through DepEd projects
instead of a clear congressional
legislation.
 Governance of Basic Education Act of
2001 (Republic Act No. 9155) was not
formulated based on the lessons learned
in TEEP and BEAM, but through EDCOM
Report.
RA 9155:
A struggle between SBM and
‘centralist’ discourses
WB’s TEEP
RA 9155
School Level
Budget allocation
Division Level
HR management
Curriculum and Infra Dev’t
National Level
While it is within the DepEd’s intention to
legitimize its efforts to let go of its authorities
according to changing rules and discourse
that favors school empowerment, the
manner by which such legitimation is
executed reaffirms DepEd’s
acknowledgement of its concentrated
authority over its lower levels.
SBM in fragmented grounds
DistrictLevel
Director
SBM is misconceived by
some principals as a license
to be ‘free as a bird’ against
the division level’s control.
Principals are incapable to
manage the school on their
own.
SBM in fragmented grounds
School
Principal
SBM is just another central
office’s directive that should
be complies so as not to
receive unwanted sanctions.
“Centralized policies worked
before. Why can’t it work
now?”
Exacerbated by the DepEd’s prohibition on
conducting personnel trainings outside the
academic calendar, the articulation,
deliberation and legitimation of SBM in the
education reform discourse are being
seriously shortchanged.
Reflections for now
The actions of various actors carrying SBM
ideas can still struggle to push changes
within the discourse, for as long as the
legitimacy of such actors is recognized, and
the ideas he transmitted receives
consensual validation, while the manner by
which he conveyed these ideas is coercive
enough to be remembered and valued by
others.