Abstract:
School Based Management (SBM) is aimes at empowering the school leadership to take charge of the management more independently by changing the dynamics of school administration from centrally managed model to more decentralized mechanism of independent schools. The objectives of introducing SBM are many: improving good governance, relevance and quality of education, while ensuring equity and community participation. SBM has been implemented for more than over a decade in Sri Lanka, the outcomes of this program at school level have not yet been brought out adequately by researches. This study attempts to find out the influence of the provisions of SBM on the leadership of school. Descriptive statistical approach is used to investigate the research problem. The research design is structured to evaluate the relationship between effectiveness of SBM as independent variable and empowerment of leadership of principals as dependent variable using the statistical techniques of correlational study. Data was collected by stratified random sampling from the population of principals and members of school boards of 20 schools from Tellippalai Education Division, Jaffna. A questionnaire, focus group interviews, and document study were employed for data collection. The provisions of SBM program have rendered the leadership remarkable degree of freedom for managerial process through participatory management. School selfgovernance facilitated in more than 88% schools and school boards contributed over 62% and government grants aided at 61% to empower the leadership. 25 % of principals view the SBM to be providing excellent facilitation to the overall leadership functions in schools. While 35 % consider it to be moderate and 40 % are of opinion of less than the average level. Almost all principals feel that there is certain level of intervention of central authorities in SBM which affect the impact of SBM in producing the expected benefits in school management. The authority to handle financial and human resources has not been adequately decentralized yet. The school boards are not independent and lack control over the schools. The newly introduced Enhanced Program for School Improvement (EPSI) initiatives must be revised to strengthen the school boards with more authorities to manage resources and involve in administrative decision making.
