The Great Challenge of Malaysian School Leaders' Instructional Leadership: Can It Affect Teachers' Functional Competency across 21st Century Education?

Competency is the basis for the combination of teachers' skills, knowledge, and behaviors that must strive to enhance their ability in the education world. Each component should be integrated holistically to support the teachers' effectiveness, administration, and school excellence. Therefore, this study focused on the relationship between school leaders' instructional leadership and teachers' functional competency. It also identified which factors in instructional leadership contributed to teachers' functional competency in Malaysia context. A total of 225 teachers from the high-performance school in the state of Kedah were selected as participants. Meanwhile, the instrument in this research was adapted from the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) to measure school leaders' instructional leadership. In contrast, the instrument for teachers' functional competency was adapted from the Integrated Assessment Module for Education Officers (PBPPP) and developed by the MOE Curriculum Development Division. The findings showed that there was a very strong and positive relationship between school leaders' instructional leadership and teachers' functional competency (r=.956, p=.00). At the same time, multiple regression analysis revealed that there were three components of the independent variable explaining the variance as 15.1% of teachers' functional competency (r2=.151, F (2, 214)=80.74, pst century educational challenges.