Introduction
School Improvement Plan (SIP) serves as a blueprint where the stakeholders including administrator, teachers, students and the community agreed on certain goals or targets they wish to achieve for their school. It plays a pivotal role on realizing better quality learning outcomes by engaging stakeholders and making them co-owners of the school’s projects or interventions. Few studies believe there is as strong correlation between a well-planned SIP to the academic achievement of the children, most specifically in math and language subjects (Curry, 2007; Fernandez, 2011; Ettinger, 2015).
SIP is an important element of School-Based Management (SBM) which espouses shared governance and shared accountability. As stipulated in the RA 9155 otherwise known as Governance of Basic Education Act, schools should be empowered by the state to make decisions on what is best for the learners they serve. Hence, this pave way for the birth of enhanced SIP process which is evidence-based, results-based and learner-centered. Under the new process, stakeholders’ participation and accountability has been given greater recognition. School heads are tasked to establish community linkages and to encourage active participation of non-academic personnel in doing local initiatives for the school improvement. Kanana, 2015 stresses that parents’ involvement in school plays an important role in their children’s ability to achieve academically. This is supported by Deslandes & Bertrand (2005) who argued that parents who were able to monitor the school work of their children carefully to positive engagement, academic achievement, attendance and good attitude toward school.
As stated in DepEd Order No. 44, s. 2015, the main goal of SIP is to improve the three key results areas in basic education: access, quality and governance. Inclusiveness in education is one of the DepEd thrusts in realizing access to education. Programs such as Special Education (SPED) for children with special needs, Alternative Learning System (ALS) for out-of-school children, youth and adults, Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE), Indigenous People Education (IPED), Special Science Curriculum, Alternative Delivery Mode (ADM) for special children and families in need of special protection and the like are being implemented to make the basic education more accessible to all. Further, in the school level, high enrolment rate, high promotion rate and low dropout rate are the translation of access to education. Hence, the SIP should have developed or crafted project that would result to better entry in education.
On the other hand, the quality in education can be accomplished when graduates are prepared for further education and ready in the world of work. It focuses on the delivery of instruction and ensures to create functional and critical learners. Helping the learners to become reader who does not just recognize word and sentences but also comprehend it has been a long battle in the country.
Governance on education ensures collaborative and transparent delivery of services or interventions for the school improvement. It also safeguard that the students enjoy a child friendly school with adequate and functional facilities and hygienic environment and secure that their privileges will be respected. The end goal of this is off course to better serve them.
The SIP involves participatory process of gathering and collecting data, analyzing its effect on school performance and formulating possible solutions. The decision making must be collaboratively executed by the school head, teachers and the community. Despite of this well-established process, some schools fail to engage stakeholders due to some reasons such as time management and conflict of ideas.
Similar to the process of SIP is the Photovoice. It is one of several qualitative methods where the community participants use photography, and stories about their photographs, to identify and represent issues of importance to them. One emerging opportunity for the utilization of Photovoice methodology is research on community built and social environments, particularly when looking at the context of the neighbourhood (Nykiforuk et.al., 2011). The use of Photovoice research may contribute to a sense of community ownership through participation in a project that will help draw attention to important community issues (Wang & Burris, 1997).
Seeing the relationship of SIP and Photovoice methodology, this study aims to investigate whether the SIP process has been followed by the school and how can the Photovoice enhance its process. Specifically it seeks to answer the following questions:
- What priority improvement areas identified in the SIP have been confirmed by Photovoice process? ; and
- Are there issues or problems captured by Photovoice process that were not identified in the SIP previously?
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