Perceptions of selected heterogeneous primary school heads continuous quality improvement in the school strategic planning

Abstract

In education today, school heads rely on strategic planning to prepare and manage the school’s academic excellence goals. Malaysia Ministry of Education has introduced a new national key performance indicator for education known as the school key result area to identify, assess and monitor the school’s achievements to reap the status of a high performance school. This study employed a qualitative longitudinal trend approach investigating the perceptions of the selected heterogeneous primary school Heads in Malaysia toward continuous quality improvement (CQI) in the school strategic planning (SSP) in sustaining quality education. The study involved a one-to-one interview with the selected heterogeneous primary school Headmaster and Head-mistresses in thirteen schools, i.e., four from the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia and nine in the Klang Valley area. The analysis of documents and participant observation accompanied the unstructured face-to-face interview with the respondents. The interview questions covered quality theory, continuous improvement, incremental improvement or Kaizen, strategy theory, strategic planning models, and the connection between CQI and SSP in the primary school context. A conceptual framework was designed and applied to the interview responses. The finding of the study indicated that CQI is not a new concept but was already in the school management systems structure known as added-value. As such, CQI can be put into practice in the school immediately since the similarities with SSP carried out in the school is very apparent. The study focused on primary school education of today that has to face the challenge of ensuring all students graduate with the 21st century skills necessary to succeed and compete regionally and internationally. To outperform others, the school utilizes the business-style operations of the school strategic planning and the continuous quality improvement to identify its key result areas in order to reap high performance school status. As a result, six themes emerged from the SSP, namely: 1) effective planning methodology; 2) school vision and mission; 3) culture, climate and change; 4) strategic outcomes (specifically the school programs); 5) supportive leadership and 6) broad stakeholder buy-in or the involvement of not only the parents, the community but also the students and the school. Four themes emerge from CQI, namely: 1) Planning and process, 2) Staffing, 3) Data Management, and 4) Leading. The SSP will act as a compass to direct CQI in the school improvement plan that will bring in students’ academic excellence, high performance school status (HPS) and internationalization contact. The traditional approach of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is now supplanted with a new dictate – ‘products can always be made better.’ To paraphrase Deming: ‘continuous quality improvement is the product.’