Digital Era Readiness and Leadership and Management Competencies of School Heads in the Schools Division of Marinduque

Abstract

Abstract: This study focuses on the digital era readiness in terms of digital leadership and digital skills and school leadership and management competencies of school heads in the Schools Division of Marinduque which is anchored on the undeniable need for competent school leadership and management that can effectively satisfy the complex and multi-layered requirements of the Education 4.0 era. This validates the need for anything 'new' in school leadership and management capacity of school heads, particularly in terms of their ability to effectively lead transformation in schools. The study employed 176 elementary and 46 secondary school heads during School Year 2020-2021 and used quantitative research design with frequency, ranking, mean and Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman-Rho as statistical tools. An online researcher-made questionnaire was used in the gathering of data. Result of the study reveals that school heads are approaching readiness (3.92) in the digital era of Education 4.0 as manifested by their digital leadership (3.94) and digital skills (3.90). They also exhibited moderate proficiency (4.04) in the execution of their leadership and management competencies in five domains as expected in the Philippine Professional Standards for School Heads (PPSSH). Meanwhile, a significant relationship (P-value: 0.000) was noted between their digital era readiness and their leadership and management competencies.