LEADERSHIP PRACTICES AND RISK MANAGEMENT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH SCHOOL PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE THROUGH PLS-SEM AND IPMA ANALYSIS

Abstract

A key component of running a tahfiz school is the system of educational governance. A school's reputation can be destroyed and community trust can be lost if it is unable to manage academics, stakeholder satisfaction, internal processes, as well as learning and growth in school. The school's progress towards reaching the Malaysia Education Development Plan 2015-2025, which focuses on producing holistic human capital, will be hampered by ineffective educational governance. Tahfiz school's performance can be enhanced by implementing leadership practices and risk management to address the problem. The purpose of this study was to identify the level of leadership practices and risk management, as well as the level of performance in tahfiz schools. Furthermore, an investigation was conducted into the correlation between leadership practices and risk management with the performance of tahfiz school. This research examines 190 school administrators from Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perak, Selangor, and Johor through a quantitative survey approach. A series of questionnaires were used as instruments for data collection, and the statistical packages Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) were used for analysis. A descriptive analysis reveals that tahfiz schools perform exceptionally well and have moderate and very high standards for leadership practices and risk management. The results of the structural model test indicate a moderate positive influence of leadership practices (β=0.308, t=4.276, p<0.01, f2=0.132) and a strong positive influence of risk management (β=0.618, t=5.225, p<0.01, f2=0.531) on the performance of tahfiz schools. This study also used IPMA analysis to identify the overall effect, indicating the significance of the risk management dimension in predicting tahfiz school performance. The findings of the study can help the Malaysian Ministry of Education develop a number of efforts to assist the administration of tahfiz school in reaching their goal of 125,000 professional huffaz by the year 2050.