Teacher leadership in public schools in the Philippines

Concerns have been raised about the tendency to associate leadership with ascribed authority and position and confining school leadership to the leadership of the principal. Distributed leadership has been proposed and one approach to the distribution of leadership in schools is teacher leadership. Teacher leadership recognises the important contribution of teachers to school improvement and brings to the fore the emergence of excellent teachers who have demonstrated leadership capabilities at the same time. Using an adaptation of the framework of York-Barr and Duke (2004) which linked teacher leadership to student learning, this study explored teacher leadership in public schools in the Philippines. The important role of context in the development and practice of teacher leadership was considered by investigating the contextual conditions that either enabled or constrained teacher leadership practice. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews with principals and focus-group interviews with teacher leaders and other teachers from seven public schools in the Philippines. The study found that teacher leadership was a meaningful concept in Philippine public schools even if the term ‘teacher leadership’ has not been introduced formally. Teacher leadership consists of actions undertaken by teachers who respond positively to opportunities to improve teaching and learning. These teachers possess a strong sense of moral purpose and requisite pedagogic and leadership competencies. They help create conditions that support teaching and learning, often in challenging circumstances, in collaboration with colleagues and the school’s leadership. Recommendations from this study include recognising teacher leadership in the country’s education reform agenda, encouraging teacher leaders to accept leadership work and giving attention to development programmes for teacher leaders and principals.