Salahuddin
Master of Education (Leadership and Management),
Introduction
In recent years schools organisations are facing great pressures from external contexts. SMPN 25 Bima, an Indonesian secondary junior school which is located in West Nusa Tenggara province, has the same challenge. The notion of competing with other schools and public enquiry to be accountable for the result of students’ outcomes has pushed the school to improve their capacity. Indeed, parents, school boards members, and local government are now demanding that the school to attain higher levels of scrutiny concerning the quality of education. Parents are pressing SMPN 25 Bima to take the responsibility for educating their children. In particular, parents and community have compelling interest in ensuring at least basic student learning and show their effectiveness in creating desirable outcomes and actions
The presence of the above mentioned pressures are underpinned by the fact that students’ achievement is below the national standard. This can be seen from the result of the national final examination where the average is ten percent below the national standard. Failing to meet the national standard is coupled with the complaints from some parents that their children have poor literacy and numeracy skills. It is contended that the primary reason of those failures deals with teachers’ motivation and work climate within the school. Having observed the current condition, teachers have low motivation which effect negatively to their job satisfaction and the work climate is unconducive where individual has no willingness to share knowledge and skills to each other. In fact, these circumstances have led to the poor attainment of the students.
Given the central importance of improving the organisational capability, SMPN 25 is encouraged to strategically take necessary steps so that the fundamental objectives of increasing students’ achievements can be obtained. In pursuit to improving SMPN 25 Bima capacity, two frameworks from Shafritz, Ott & Jang (2005) are considered to be used as fundamental basis. The first is The economy of Incentives by Chester I. Barnard (1938). Bernard’s work is viewed as an important guideline in increasing job satisfaction of teaching and administrative staffs at SMPN 25 Bima. This framework can be used as a basis for a short-term goal in increasing students’ outcomes. The second framework is Changing organisational cultures which is written by Harrison M. Trice and Janice M. Beyer (1993). Trice and Beyer’s framework is viewed as an essential and suitable standpoint in managing culture at SMPN 25 Bima. This is aiming at enhancing positive work climate within the organisation. Trice and Beyer’s work will be planned as the basis for long term objective in improving students’ achievement.
