2025 IJRSE – Volume 14 Issue 14
Available Online: 22 July 2025
Author/s:
Rivas, Mark Alvin D.
Pedro C. Sese Sr. Memorial High School, Department of Education, Masbate Philippines (markalvin.rivas@deped.gov.ph)
Abstract:
This review focuses on the instrumental role of instructional leadership in improving school effectiveness in the Philippines, particularly in making teaching more responsive to educational reforms such as the K-12 curriculum. It brings into relief systemic challenges—administrative burden placed on leaders, misallocation of resources and sociocultural barriers—that affected leaders, educators, students, and the academic life of the school more generally. Applying thematic analysis informed by PRISMA 2020, this paper synthesizes 73 eligible publications (2014–2025) gathered using Boolean Operators and Publish or Perish software from studies, policy, and case studies on the Philippine educational leadership. The study finds that resource-based limitations, policy discrepancies, and equity issues hamper the potential of instructional leadership as a tool for curriculum alignment. Yet adaptive leadership is the key strategy in resource-challenged settings, where local resources and team work are exploited. Although this research is restricted to K-12, more research is required to understand inequity in higher education. Pragmatic considerations require decentralized governance, investment in digital infrastructure, and equity-based leadership development focused on school-community collaboration and culturally sustaining pedagogy. Rearticulating leadership as a synergy based upon a dialectical relationship between global norms and local practices, and proposing a culturalist model of transformative and emulative leadership as a response to calls for adaptive, inclusive reform in Philippine education grounded in leadership that aims to both address structural inequities and encourage contextually sensitive responses.
Keywords: instructional leadership, transformative strategies, Philippines
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrse.2025.25147
Cite this article:
Rivas, M. A. D. (2025). Leadership, equity and innovation: A systematic review of transformative strategies. International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 14(14), 59-88. https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrse.2025.25147