Towards the development of a model of effective governance of diocesan school system

In the Ecclesiastical Province of Manila, the Manila Archdiocesan and Parochial Schools Association (MAPSA) is providing management services to 91 diocesan and parochial schools. The schools’ mission and accountability to its stakeholders are under the primary responsibility of the school boards. Catholic school boards as corporate structure are given the authority for overseeing the implementation of the school’s mission and developing policies to ensure their implementations.By law, every school in the MAPSA system has a board commonly referred to as Board of Trustees. However, there had not been a formal study on MAPSA school boards. This lack of information causes difficulties in ascertaining board importance, purposes, function or the value of today’s school boards in the Archdiocese of Manila and in the Philippines. The study aims to trace the evolution of benchmarks for effective school governance of MAPSA school boards using two levels: MAPSA board and School boards. It determines the level of the effectiveness of governance procedures of two levels of MAPSA boards. It determines and evolves a benchmarking model for effective MAPSA school boards and it provides recommendations for the improvement of governance of diocesan school boards.The research design utilized a descriptive – case method employing both qualitative and quantitative techniques to be able to identify the “best governance practices” of school boards.The respondents of the study included: 28 members of the MAPSA executive board and 21 members of seven selected school boards. There were three (3) significant persons who served as key informants for the interviews.Two instruments were employed: (1) Self-evaluation checklist and, (2) a 57-item questionnaire. These were administered to various board members – the checklist to school board members and the questionnaire to the members of the MAPSA board. Prior permission was sought from the NABE Office (Washington D.C.) before the administration of the questionnaires. Data were analyzed using simple percentages, frequency and mean.Qualitative data were drawn from minutes of board meetings; journalistic reflections, MAPSA documents including minutes of board meetings and interview results. The qualitative data were clustered around themes aligned with the NABE benchmarks. The profiles obtained from the seven schools were designed to strengthen the level of acceptability of the seven schools as “effective schools”. The results of the study identified benchmarks of effective governance of MAPSA. There are six (6) benchmarks of the MAPSA board and five (5) benchmarks of the school boards. The effective schools selected were conforming to the criteria set for effective schools. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis revealed that there is an agreement among respondents regarding the presence of quality governance among the boards of MAPSA. They have common “best practices” in board governance. The “best practices” of MAPSA cascade down to the level of the local boards. The NABE benchmarks are acceptable norms for assessing the effectiveness of the MAPSA board and MAPSA school boards. There are three other identifiable “best practices” of the MAPSA board not found in the NABE benchmarks. They are: (a) the constant focus on the strengthening of religion as “core” of the curriculum, (b) the provisions for effective and efficient legal services and (c) the autonomy of the MAPSA with a distinct legal identity apart from the corporation sole of the RCAM. The distinctive “best practice” of MAPSA points to the loyalty of the board to the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines that directed the schools to strengthen religion as “core” of the curriculum. And since the MAPSA is under the church structure whose head is the bishop, the board has institutionalized this through the Center for Integral Evangelization. In addition to this, there is a legal distinct character in the MAPSA governance attributed to the presence of the Legal Counsel and the move towards MAPSA incorporation