The Challenges of Implementing the School-Based Empowerment Educational Supervisory Model

The study aimed to identify the level of challenges facing the implementation of the school-based empowerment educational supervisory model. The researcher employed the descriptive survey method, utilizing a questionnaire distributed to a random sample of supervisors, school principals, and teachers in Makkah region, totaling 421 participants. The questionnaire covered three main domains: administrative challenges, technical challenges, and societal challenges. The results revealed that participants rated the level of challenges to effective implementation of the new supervisory model as high across all three domains. The most prominent administrative challenges were the variation in different school environments and its expected impact on the implementation of evaluative and supervisory processes, and the extent to which schools receive the necessary support from the education departments in providing the needs that were revealed by the external school evaluation report, in addition to the lack of clarity of the mechanism of accountability and incentives for workers in the field. The results also showed some technical challenges such as the abundance of professional burdens on the parties of the supervisory process from supervisors, teachers, and school principals, and the weakness of the necessary competencies in schools to apply the supervisory model, and the weakness of the required technical infrastructure. Also, the lack of the motivation to approach changes and development among workers in schools, in addition to the weakness of awareness of the mechanisms for applying the new supervisory model or the lack of awareness of its importance, are considered among the most prominent societal challenges toward it. The results also showed the existence of statistically significant differences between the mean ranks of participants' responses according to the variable of job in the questionnaire as a whole and in the technical challenges and societal challenges, while there are no statistically significant differences in the administrative challenges. The results also showed no statistically significant difference in participants' responses according to the variable of professional experience. The study recommended enhancing the competencies of those in supervisory roles-supervisors and school principals-through their participation in specialized training programs in evaluation, self-directed supervision, and transformational leadership, in order to equip them to implement the school-based supervisory model effectively. Additionally, the study emphasized the importance of allocating human, financial, and technical resources that align with the requirements of school empowerment, promoting a culture of empowerment within schools, and conducting future studies to examine the effectiveness of implementing the new supervisory model.