International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention (IJHSSI)

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention
ISSN (Online): 2319 – 7722, ISSN (Print): 2319 – 7714
www.ijhssi.org Volume 2 Issue 8 ǁ August. 2013ǁ PP.31-36
www.ijhssi.org 31 | P a g e
Principal Competencies and the Achievement of National
Education Standard in Indonesia
1
Dr. Malmuzzammil Yasin, 2
Mustamin, 3
Dr. Lokman Mohd Tahir
1
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
2
Ph.D. Candidate, Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
3
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
ABSTRACT: This research aims to investigate the level of principal competencies among principals in the
Southern Province of Sulawesi, Indonesia and determine if possible model could be built to show the
relationship between principal competencies and the achievement of Indonesian Education Standard. There
were 154 respondents of the senior assistant teachers from 40 State Secondary Schools (SMA) in the Southern
Province of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The results of descriptive data analysis demonstrated that the competency level
of school principals and the level of national education standard of Indonesia were scored at high level. Using
these results, further analysis was done using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and the results showed
that there were significant relationships between the competency levels of school principals and the
achievement of the national education standard of Indonesia (SNP).
KEYWORDS: Principal competencies; school leadership; instructional leadership, national education
standard.
I. INTRODUCTION
Leadership competencies are the foundations to propel the achievement of the organization (Bennis and
Nanus, 1985; Drucker, 1992). In school, principal competencies have always been related to the effectiveness
and efficacy. School principals, as the education leaders are bestowed with the responsibilities to achieve the
school goals (Wahjosumidjo, 2003; Lokman, Malmuzzamil, & Mislina, 2013). Thus school principals are
expected to play their roles, including being the leader of the school, community and financial, material, and
human resource, as well as to ensure the academic performance of their students (Institute for Educational
Leadership, 2000; Owens, 2001). Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, and Wahlstrom (2004) believed that the school
principal as a leader, should own three major achievement aims which are focusing on the students, teachers and
the school itself, and maintained that the accomplishment of an organisation is largely dependent on the
motivation and the capacity of the school principal as the education leader. Research conducted by Hallinger
and Heck (1998) indicated that school principals have great impacts on students’ performance through schools’
vision, mission and objectives. Leithwood et al. (2004) suggested that school principals as school leaders
provide indirect impact to the learning outcome yet very significant towards education. The school principals
must also be competent in executing their tasks as the leaders whether it is focusing on school, the instructional
method or even the operational aspects to support the students’ success (Hallinger & Murphy, 1985; Kotter,
1990; Katz, 1993; Hopkins, 2000; Waters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2003; Leithwood et al., 2004; & Interstate
School Leaders Licensure Consortium, 2008). School principals’ competency in terms of school leadership set
off from the knowledge about leading their organization and the stakeholders, being able to respond and
influence other people whether in social or political area (Bolman and Deal, 2003; Florida Department of
Education, 2008). The competency of the principals in schools played an important role in promoting and
preserving changes in schools in which without their efforts, schools will never experience transformation or
improvement of the students’ accomplishment whether academically or vice – versa, and also their preparation
towards living with the society later.
The school competency development has becoming a national interest in several countries like
Malaysia and Indonesia. Both governments demand school principals to acquire competencies related to
leadership and management (Institute for Educational Leadership, 2000; Institute Aminuddin Baki, 2008 &
Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium, 2008) However, in Indonesia the school competency
development among the principals is obviously not commenced yet by the district rulers (Sudrajat, 2008 &
Rancangan Strategis Departemen Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia, 2007) even though Indonesia has aimed for
the achievement of National Education Standard (SNP) in 2013 (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia,
2007). Some references showed that the SNP efforts and achievement are far beyond realization as the
principals do not acquire the competency towards accomplishing the set goals (Dharma, 2008; Rahman, 2005 &

Principal Competencies and the Achievement of...
Rakhmat, 2010). According to Mazzeo (2003), many developed countries utilize the strategy of competency
development with the gradual licensed certificate system. Malaysia for instance, uses the high impact
competency development of school principals programme (Institut Aminuddin Baki, 2010), by suggesting an
effort in enhancing the competency of school principals with special training together with the course for
national professional principalship qualification, while in Florida, United States of America, the Florida
Principal Leadership Standards and Competencies approach is widely being used (Florida Department of
Education, 2008). We believe that these efforts are worthwhile however, one big concern raised is regarding the
kind of competencies that the principals should have since a vast volume of literatures pointing to different
angles and perspectives towards competencies. Secondly if an instrument which takes into account all different
perspectives can be built to make it more comprehensive so that the measurement of competencies can be used
to reflect the training and practices in the school setting.
II. METHODOLOGY AND DATA ANALYSIS
The first challenge in this research was to identify the suitable instruments to be used in measuring
principal competencies as there are different dimensions of competency available in the literatures. A review on
several school principals competency documents (Institut Aminuddin Baki, 2008); Florida Department of
Education, 2008, & The Indonesia National Department of Education, 2007) showed that they are some
dissimilarities in the prescribed competency dimensions. The development of the principal competencies
concept in this research was based on the Ministry of Education, Malaysia (2008), Florida Department of
Education (2008) and the National Department of Education, Indonesia (2007) documents. The three documents
were collaborated using Jackson and Trochim, (2002) explanation on concept making where 12 dimensions of
competency were identified and successfully built into a questionnaire to be used in this study (refer Mustamin
and Malmuzzammil, 2012). The final version of the questionnaire consists of 123 items which was administered
to respondents in the Southern Province of Sulawesi. The 12 dimensions were then grouped into three bigger
dimensions in this studies (1) school leadership (2) instructional leadership, and (3) instructional leadership, for
analysis purpose. Besides that, another instrument was also built based on the Indonesian Education Standard
(SNP) to measure the achievement of the SNP as perceived by the respondents. Finally, The SEM analysis was
used to determine the correlation coefficient between the competency of school principals and the SNP
achievement. Table 1 below shows the results of analysis from gathered data, using the Statistical Packages for
Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.00 on the respondents’ opinions of the competency categories of their school
principals. In general, the result of descriptive analysis demonstrated that the competency level of school
principals) were perceived at high level by respondents (high mean values).
Table 1: The Competencies of School Principals in Indonesia.
Dimensions of competency Mean SD Dimensions of competency Mean SD
1. Policies and direction 3.972 0.510 7. Learning environment
management
4.004 0.520
2. Building the cooperation
among staff, stakeholders and
society
4.131 0.465 8. Responsibility for
learning and assessment
3.940 0.553
3. The management of the
school programme
3.911 0.509 9. Managing
transformation and
innovation
3.950 0.534
4. Understanding the diversity 3.960
0.487
10.Managing operations
and technology resources 3.905 0.550
5. Instruction and
accomplishment
4.005 0.534
11. The Ethics of leadership 4.148
0.497
6. Instructional leadership 3.867 0.535 12. Building the human
resource
3.986 0.505
SD: Standard Deviation
Table 2 below shows the respondents’ scores on the achievement of the SNP. Generally, all the means
were scored at high values. This standard aligns with the guideline standard published by the Badan

Standardisasi Nasional Pendidikan Indonesia (National Standardization Agency of Education, Indonesia, BSNP,
2005) which is the Standard III category.
SEM Analysis Findings
The first step in the analysis of SEM is the hypothesis analysis from the measured dimensions of
competency. The rejection or acceptance of the hypothesis is recognised through the analysis method of
acceptance Ho if the value of rxy < rtable at significant level of p = 0.010 (rtable = 0.208; dk = n – k = 142). The
analysis is shown in Table 3.
Table 3: The correlation coefficient between the principal’ competencies and the SNP achievement
The dimensions of competency The dimensions of SNP
School leadership (X1)
Curriculum
(Y1.1)
Staff
(Y1.2)
Facility
(Y1.3)
Cost
(Y1.4)
Policies and directions (X1.1) 0.585**
0.611**
0.492**
0.477**
Building the cooperation among staff,
stakeholders and society (X1.2)
0.615**
0.632**
0.504**
0.504**
The management of the school programme
(X1.3)
0.585**
0.593**
0.474**
0.490**
Understanding the diversity (X1.4) 0.618**
0.630**
0.503 0.524**
Instructional leadership (X2)
Instruction (Y2.1) Management
(Y2.2)
Assessment
(Y2.3)
Instruction and accomplishment (X2.1) 0.718**
0.669**
0.611**
Instructional leadership (X2.2) 0.692**
0.626**
0.539**
Learning environment management (X2.3) 0.731**
0.690**
0.616**
Responsibility for learning and assessment
(X2.4)
0.713**
0.671**
0.572**
Operational leadership (X3) The competency of graduates (Y3)
Managing transformation and innovation
(X3.1)
0.564**
Managing operations and technology
resources (X3.2)
0.604**

The Ethics of leadership (X3.3) 0.608**
Building the human resource (X3.4) 0.559**
The correlation results in Table 3 indicates that the null hypothesis was rejected but the study
hypothesis was supported because the correlation coefficient produced passed the standard of 0.208. This
indicates that there was a significant relationship between the competency of school principals and the
achievement of the SNP standard as perceived by the respondents.
Based on the results from Table 4, the value of statistic 2
(Chi-squares) is = 153.155, with the value of
the Significance Probability = 0.123 > 0.050, which explains that the proposed model is significant with the data
obtained. The value of Normed Fit Index (NFI) = 0.968 is closer to the value of 1.000, which shows that the
proposed model has more than 90% compatibility with the data. The value of Root Mean Square Error of
Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.031 ≤ 0.080 shows that this value which is based on residual analysis shows that
the model becomes more compatible with the data when the residual value obtained is smaller. The value of The
Minimum Sample Discrepancy Function divided with the Degree of Freedom (CMIN/DF) = 1.143 < 2.000,
shows that the model and the data has average category to be agreed to. The value of Goodness of Fit Index
(GFI) = 0.913 ≥ 0.900, shows that the proposed model in this study suits the data collected. The value of Tucker
Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.994 ≥ 0.950, indicates that the comparison of fit index model being studied is better than
other models (baseline). The value of Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.996 ≥ 0.950, shows that the index
indicated the fit level inclined towards the high level. The value of Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) =
305.155 < Independence AIC, shows that AIC model is better than IAIC because it contains more character of
independence to measure the compatibility of the model using the capacity of the parameters. The value of
Expected Cross Validation Index (ECVI) = 1.994 < Independence ECVI, which shows that the compatibility of
the model towards data is better as the value has more Independence ECVI character. The model based on the
findings is presented by Figure 1 below:

Based on the model suggested in the above figure, the focal research findings were (1) the competency
of school principals in terms of school leadership (X1) had direct significant impact on the school achievement
of the standard (Y1); path coefficient analysis = 0.720 and the standardized direct effects = 0.722 (2) the
competency of school principals in terms of instructional leadership (X2) also had direct significant effect on
achievement of SNP standard (Y2); path coefficient analysis = 0.120 and the standardized direct effects = 0.122
(3) the school competency of school principals in terms of school operational leadership (X3) did not show any
significant impact on the achievement of SNP standard (Y3); path coefficient analysis = -0.060.
III. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the results of descriptive analysis demonstrated that the competency levels of school
principals) were perceived at high level by respondents (high mean values), and the respondents’ scores on the
schools’ achievement of the SNP standard were high. The results also showed that the principals’ competencies
in term of school leadership and instructional leadership had direct significant impact on the achievement of the
SNP standard. Other finding aligned with this research was the one by Hallinger and Murphy (1985), which
demonstrated that leadership influence has indirect impact on school output even though later study by
Hallinger and Heck (1998) revealed that the competency of school principals was actually never had an effect
on school achievement but because of other various intermediate variables. Thus further in depth research
should be conducted to clarify some gaps in the literatures in regard to principal competencies discussion.
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