School Leadership in Indonesia: A Systematic Literature Review

This paper reviews systematically literature on school leadership in the context of Indonesian education from 2004 to 2019. Its purpose is to investigate major issues which exist in the school leadership practices in Indonesia and propose some sustainable solutions so that educational policymakers, stakeholders and scholars can improve their awareness and knowledge of school leadership. Eight core international EDLM (educational leadership and management) journals were used as the source of the literature. Additionally, a high-quality journal with the indexation of Scopus and Social Sciences Citation Index, Asia Pacific Journal of Education (APJE), was included. The literature search yielded 16 articles that were reviewed. This study reports several crucial issues that need to have serious attention paid to them, including a lack of capacity to lead and manage schools, insufficiency of published studies, and the inappropriateness of principal selection processes. The suggested solutions for these problems consist of developing principal training centres in all the provinces of Indonesia, conducting more collaboration with overseas scholars, and improving principal selection procedures. Contributions for theory, practices and further study are provided.

Keywords: Educational leadership; Indonesian school leadership; principals' selection; principals' development; school-based management; systematic review

Effective school leadership is a critical aspect to improve the quality of education. If the school leaders are unable to properly manage the school's resources, then educational institutions will struggle to survive and to develop. The role of the school principal is to be the executive who directs and guides all the programmes of school improvement. Additionally, each school principal has a responsibility to guide and manage the quality of teaching and the resources of professional development for school programmes ([82]), and is responsible for school success ([62]). Thus, the successful implementation of education reform depends on the school leadership executing the reform ([18]).

Internationally, the field of school leadership has become a prime concern in the agendas of education policy programmes ([54]). This issue is commonly explored through empirical studies on school reform. The practice of leadership has gained substantial recognition as a catalyst in the management of school change ([69]). Effective educational leaders, particularly principals, are a key element in effective schools because of the significant impacts which they make on student achievement and school success ([31]) 'in printing and developing human resources and other resources' ([50]: 290).

During the past 20 years, the importance of developing school leadership has been elevated through theory ([9]). As a result, at the beginning of the 21st century, research into educational leadership has become a major focus ([79]). This is because the quality of school leadership contributes significantly to student achievement and school quality ([5]).

Initially, most of the school leadership literature was written by scholars from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Beginning in the 1990s, scholars began documenting various constructions on educational leadership and management described in the educational literature ([55]). Then, models and theories of educational leadership started to appear and were more concrete ([19]). More than two decades ago, studies in the educational leadership and management field began in non-Western contexts ([20]). As research of school leadership grew, scholars have conducted reviews in various parts of the world, such as Latin America ([17]), South Africa ([10]), Saudi Arabia ([55]), Australia ([14]; [16]) and the United Kingdom ([48]). In spite of this increase in the number of articles submitted to the journal Educational Management Administration & Leadership in recent years, articles from Asian countries are still less frequent ([6]). This is primarily due to a lack of studies that are conducted in Asian schools ([62]). Language differences limit the amount of support that can be provided by researchers who are not English speakers ([6]).

In the last decade, many additional studies in school leadership, particularly those using literature review methods, have been in Asian countries, such as Singapore ([51]), Malaysia ([11]; [34]), Iran ([28]), China ([45]; [79]), Hong Kong ([29]), Vietnam ([30]), Turkey ([20]), Israel ([76]) and Taiwan ([56]; [57]). Despite this expansion in research on school leadership in Asian countries, it is still at the embryonic stage ([26]). Some Asian countries ([75]), such as Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, China and Turkey ([25]) have been productive in publishing in the eight core educational leadership and management journals. However, there are still several Asian countries that lack contributions to the field of school leadership. These include Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar ([78]). [72]: 1) emphasized that 'Relatively little is known about leadership and leadership development in Indonesia when compared to those in other Asian countries'.

Compared with other Asian countries, Indonesia contributes less to the development of the field of school leadership. Even though the evolution of leadership practices has grown significantly over time ([73]), the Indonesian educational leadership literature is still at its inception phase ([60]). [69]: 504) confirmed that 'The issues of educational leadership and school reform in Indonesia are important, but to date, they have been relatively neglected in the published literature'. [72] pointed out that only one study, [62] focusing on school leadership in Indonesia, was published in eight core journals in educational leadership and management from 2000 to 2011. Raihani's research was an extension of the study conducted in three successful schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, by [63] that focused on the principals' beliefs and values. Consequently, policymakers at the national level tended to depend on the results and practices of the school system from the Western context rather than using Indonesian research and analysis ([69]).

Since then, the number of articles published on Indonesian school leadership has increased considerably. However, there is still a need for improvement. For instance, [71] has conducted a literature review focusing on early childhood educational leadership, without employing a systematic approach, using the Indonesian language, and published by the Ministry of Education and Culture Republic of Indonesia. In addition, [60] discussed the base of knowledge in the field of educational leadership and teacher development in both Indonesia and Malaysia. Accordingly, there is no systematic review of school leadership in the Indonesian context. This demonstrates the serious need to conduct a systematic review of the study on this topic. [22] suggested that scholars in educational leadership and management need to pay greater attention to the 'methodology' of conducting reviews of research. In order to fill this gap, therefore, this article tries to investigate the main issues in school leadership in Indonesia, the fourth largest country in the world. Furthermore, this article aims to identify the primary problems and propose maintainable solutions for the field of school leadership in Indonesia.

In order to focus the review, two research questions were addressed, namely:

• What are the main problems with school leadership that exist in Indonesia?
• What are the fundamental solutions to these problems that can be provided for education practitioners, policymakers and scholars?

This study contributes toward both the current theory and practice of school leadership as well as providing a basis for future research. This review contributes significantly to solving the limited number of studies on school leadership in the Asian context and in particular the Indonesian context. [63]: 123) pointed out that 'This lack of information about Asian and other contexts of school leadership may limit our understanding of a worldview on school leadership, and more particularly on successful school leadership'. In line with the condition, [23]) concluded that there is a need for more empirical and review studies from Asian educational leadership and management (school leadership) so that there is a basis for comparison of Asian and Western studies. [26] emphasized that systematic reviews of research in Asian countries on educational leadership and management may be in 'hidden literature'; thus, such reviews need to be conducted. Practically, this study contributes significantly to improving the awareness and knowledge of Indonesian practitioners and stakeholders. It may provide an invaluable set of references for both practitioners and stakeholders, especially policymakers who have a vital role in creating various education policies in the national educational system.

For future research, this study provides a useful overview of the current field of school leadership in Indonesia for scholars studying in the field. A number of studies ([26]; [27]; [72]; [75]) have reported that Indonesian scholars had not made a significant contribution to the field of educational leadership. This may occur due to a lack of understanding of issues related to school leadership. This paper is focused on reviewing systematically some of the main issues and provides some recommendations to solve them. However, it is crucial that other investigators continue with more in-depth research based on the results of this study.

Systematic reviews are conducted to comprehend a specific topic or to explore new research and practices for improvement. According to [53]: 20), 'Systematic reviewing has a much longer history in education research, preceding the current policy-led drive towards instrumental effectiveness of research findings'. Furthermore, systematic reviews 'have a useful place in a research cycle that wishes to inform and be informed by practice and policy' ([1]: 399). There have been previous literature reviews of educational leadership in Indonesia (e.g. [60]; [71]). However, this study is the first study to use the method of systematic review that is focused especially on school leadership in the education context of Indonesia.

In this study, the articles selected for reviewing were published between 2004 and 2019. The year 2004 was chosen because many of Indonesia's educational reforms were started at the time ([43]; [58]; [74]). For instance, the new National Education System Act Number 20/2003 ([37]) began to be implemented that year and is still in effect currently. Additionally, school-based management was promoted at the time ([4]). Furthermore, during this time, subsequent policies have been implemented to prepare school principals with the required competencies. They consist of Law No. 14/2005 on Teachers and Lecturers, the Regulation of the Minister of National Education and Culture No. 13/2007 on the Standard of School Principal, and the Regulation of the Minister of National Education and Culture No. 6/2018 on Teacher Assignment as School Principal. Thus, significant changes occurred in the practices of Indonesian school leadership during this time period as school leadership became decentralized through this new education system ([73]).

The methods of [12] were used with a minor modification in this study to merely determine the number of articles as shown in Figure 1. The articles that were selected and reviewed were internationally published articles in the English language, related to school leadership in Indonesia. According to [22]: 133), 'There is no magic number that defines the "optimal" number of papers to be included in a review'. Furthermore, [64] confirmed that the number of articles needed to conduct a review is generally less than 50 and is frequently fewer than 10. Due to the lack of literature published in the field of Indonesian education, only 16 articles fit the systematic selection criteria and were included in this study.

Graph: Figure 1. Process for searching and selection the articles.

The literature search began with the eight English-language journals which are widely regarded as the primary outlets for educational leadership and management research ([20]; [26]; [22]; [47]). Those journals are Educational Administration Quarterly (EAQ); Educational Management Administration & Leadership (EMAL); Journal of Educational Administration (JEA); Journal of School Leadership (JSL); International Journal of Educational Management (IJEM); International Journal of Leadership in Education (IJLE); School Leadership and Management (SLAM) and School Effectiveness and School Improvement (SESI). Moreover, one other journal that published studies on school leadership was included. This is the Asia Pacific Journal of Education (APJE), which is also viewed as a high-quality journal indexed by both Scopus and Social Sciences Citation Index.

A systematic search of documentary databases was conducted from the nine selected journals by using the following steps: First, a search was conducted using the keywords: 'School leadership AND Indonesia'; 'Principal AND Indonesia'; 'Educational Leadership AND Indonesia'; 'Head Leadership AND Indonesia'. Second, the articles found in the search were analyzed for content based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria used to select articles were: (a) empirical, review and commentary articles – 'those kinds of articles are also essential to develop of a mature knowledge base' ([26]: 12); (b) published from December 2004 to December 2019; and (c) relevant to school leadership in Indonesia. The exclusion criteria followed the suggestion of [15] that 'only papers that were deemed to be fatally flawed would be excluded'. This means that any article was excluded from the study if it was not published in one of the nine selected journals, if it was deemed irrelevant, or if it was out of the determined date range. All abstracts and titles of the selected articles were collected and put in a file.

The search and selection process yielded 16 articles, consisting of 14 research articles, one review article and one commentary article. These articles are shown in Table 1. For each paper, all information about the authors, the year of publication, methodology, relevant findings, discussion and conclusions was extracted in a coded spreadsheet. Relevant findings were then coded on the basis of the framework presented in the next section. Because of the small number of articles, there was no need to use software to code, evaluate or analyze the findings. The evaluation data that was used was based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria as described above. Then, data analysis was conducted by 'identifying recurring themes, developing a critique, generating themes' ([15]: 6). Finally, for the data synthesis, it was conducted by judgments and interpretations of credibility and contribution ([15]: 4).

Graph

Table 1. Article journals used in the process of review.

The literature search for this study shows that the development of Indonesian school leadership research began in the 21st century and has slowly increased over the past several years. Eight of the selected articles (50%) were conducted collaboratively with Indonesian scholars and foreign scholars, most of whom are from Australia. Moreover, seven of the selected articles (43.75%) were conducted solely by Indonesian scholars and only one article (6.25%) was conducted by foreign scholars alone.

The findings are divided into the following sections: the main problems of school leadership in the education context of Indonesia are defined and some solutions for the main problems are discussed.

The 21st century has been an important period in Indonesian education due to new regulations and policies that have addressed school reform and improvement of the education system. For instance, school participation was improved and involved community members in the process of decision-making ([13]). In school, principals have a vital role in improving the quality of education. Consequently, school principals must deal with various aspects while trying to make these improvements. [42] found some key local leadership practices in Indonesia consisted of monitoring learning hours, encouraging students' participation in extracurricular programmes, improving the welfare of teachers, increasing standards, focusing on building students' character, and building partnerships with stakeholders. These practices were influenced by the condition of the school, social practices and economic considerations ([42]).

The principal as the top leader in school determines the success of the implementation of current policies and affects the character of changes that occur ([13]). [42] found that, even though educational autonomy had been implemented for more than a decade in Indonesia, the influence of the government, both explicitly and implicitly, remained strong. Consequently, three main issues appear in Indonesian school reform, such as the lack of management efficiency both at local government and local schools, the poor direction provided to the teaching staff, and the erratic change of education policies, especially those related to the national curriculum ([42]; [69]).

The following parts of this paper explain three main issues in school leadership that were found in the Indonesian context and then discuss some solutions that can be done to address these issues. The three main issues were identified based on the frequency of points raised in all sixteen reviewed articles. First, the main issue is 'the lack of capacity to lead and manage schools'. It is the most frequent point identified in all sixteen reviewed articles ([2], [3]; [13]; [31], [32]; [46]; [58]; [62]; [68]; [69]; [77]; [80]). The second most frequently identified point from the reviewed articles is 'the insufficiency of published studies' ([2]; [13]; [32]; [33]; [58]; [72]; [77]). Finally, 'inappropriateness of principal selection processes' is the third problem identified from the reviewed articles ([3]; [42]; [73]; [72]).

In order to provide the best solutions for the problems that are appropriate for Indonesia school leadership, the literature that was used was from Indonesian journals with a national accreditation SINTA 1–2 rating and from other high-quality international studies. A framework can be seen in Figure 2 which illustrates the matching of each of the main identified problems with a suggested solution.

Graph: Figure 2. Main issues and solutions for school leadership.

Indonesian school principals lack the capability to lead and manage schools in the new education system. [13] pointed out that school principals in Indonesia were facing various challenges in carrying out education efforts. For instance, the implementation of school-based management is one of the educational reform policies in Indonesia. Due to these policy changes, principals have new roles and responsibilities which lead to various demands. Consequently, the principals struggle to improve authentically, collaborate equally with the educational stakeholders, and perform school-based management where teachers are empowered to have a voice in educational planning ([2]).

As the educational leader at each school, the principal has roles and responsibilities to carry out the school-based management well. However, Indonesian school principals fail to involve the community and other education stakeholders to participate actively in the education reforms at the local schools ([3]; [58]). For instance, the results of a study conducted by [58] found that parental and community involvement was at a low level in the Madrasah school of governance. In another study, [3] reported that school-based management was not well-implemented because educational stakeholders do not have a proper understanding of it. Consequently, the academic achievements of the students were poor. Therefore, the Indonesian education reform, from a centralized system to a decentralized system, requires an improvement in the competencies of its school principals.

The Indonesian educational system has established several core competencies for school leadership. These consist of personal, managerial, supervisory, entrepreneurial and social competencies ([80]). Unfortunately, [46] reported that the main emphasis of Indonesian principals was on school management and administration rather than on leadership or development. A study conducted by [69] found that inefficient management occurred in both the local government and in schools. This situation was caused by local authorities, specifically, school principals who lacked expertise and experience in dealing with the impact of independent education which requires both public participation and shared decision-making. In addition, a study conducted by [42] revealed that the practice of Indonesian school leadership is directly and indirectly dictated by government regulations. As a result, the local schools are not ready to carry out their authority and instead maintain the status quo and produce inefficient results.

Insufficiency of properly published studies can lead to a lack of understanding by school principals on how they should work at school. Literature on educational leadership is very useful if used in practice by principals. These studies can help the practitioner to carry out either policies or regulations in managing a school. However, according to [13], there is a dearth of literature related to principal leadership in the context of Indonesia compared with the number of studies on school leadership that have been conducted in Western contexts. Besides, [72] revealed that relatively little was known about leadership and leadership development in Indonesia compared with those in other East Asian countries.

In Asia, particularly in Indonesia, school leadership has not been well explored ([32]). The analysis of the available literature highlights a relative paucity of contemporary empirical evidence about educational leadership in Indonesia ([72]). Despite some recent developments, the empirical literature concerning principal leadership in Indonesia still lags behind other countries in the Asia Pacific region ([72]).

Uniquely, some Indonesian scholars focus on the study of school leadership in Islamic schools ([58]; [62]; [68]; [77]). This is due to Islam being the majority religion in Indonesia. Moreover, the Indonesian education system is continuing to further 'integrate Islamic schools into its ambit' ([58]). However, Indonesia is not an Islamic state and still needs to improve its national education system by conducting additional educational research.

The selection of school principals has become a crucial problem in the context of Indonesia. Historically, the selection process was not conducted well; consequently, the selected principals were incompetent to lead and manage the school. For example, the study conducted by [72] in four diverse regions of Indonesia found that selecting and appointing school principals gave no consideration to training or qualifications during the selection process. Moreover, among the 18 participants in the study, only two had ever received a training from the Lembaga Pengembangan dan Pemberdayaan Kepala Sekolah (LP2KS) or the 'Agency for School Principal Empowerment and Development' ([72]). This study shows that, in many cases, inappropriately trained principals have been selected. Accordingly, this selection process used political connections rather than achievement or skills ([72]).

Starting in the 1980s, the Indonesian central government started appointing each public school principal. The government also provided voluntary preparatory training for each principal applicant that lasted one week. In the training programme, training on public administration and management was included and was provided by the education provincial staff. Since 2001, a new period of Indonesian educational reform occurred; consequently, the public administration changed and implemented some new policies to redefine and reshape how education was provided. [73]: 597) pointed out that 'Educational decentralization in Indonesia has been underway toward the improvement of education quality. The aim to improve education quality has brought a change in how district educational leaders play a role in instructional leadership, including how school principals are recruited'. The appointment of public school principals in the new decentralized education system was delegated to the district level (either a city or a region). Unfortunately, the vast majority of principals were chiefly appointed based on personal connections and individual influence with district officers ([72]). Therefore, the current principal selection process still leads to many unqualified principals being appointed.

Indonesia is still in the early stage of school leadership development and needs improvement. [49]: 213) emphasized that 'Indonesia faces many problems in education. The main problem is raised from the low ability of the headmaster to manage the school'. It is necessary to develop educational leadership competencies ([35]; [70]), to provide the relevant literature in the field, and to establish an international collaboration because 'principal leadership is a driver variable to trigger the teaching performance of teachers to increase school effectiveness' ([50]: 279). Therefore, the following sections examine some suggested solutions for developing school leadership in Indonesia.

In order to improve the capacity for school principals to lead and manage schools, it is necessary to develop principal training centres in all Indonesian provinces. [73] stated that, to continue school development and improvement, efforts are needed to increase the competency of both school leaders and teachers in Indonesia. One of the recommended solutions for policymakers is to increase the number and quality of principal training centres. Currently, there is still very little training that focuses on developing Indonesian principals as system leaders or as leaders of change ([72]). In particular, school leaders must be prepared to adjust their strategies to changing conditions at different stages of school improvement ([42]).

Most countries in Asia, such as Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore, have training centres to improve their school leadership skills. The training centres were launched in 1994 for responding to a perceived need for more effective training school leaders ([24]). These training centres are vital in developing the principals' competencies.

In Indonesia, a single principal training centre was started officially in 2009 ([72]). In other words, there is only one official school principal training centre in Indonesia, namely LP2KS or the 'Agency for School Principal Empowerment and Development' which was established in 2009 ([72]).

Indonesia is an archipelago made up of thousands of islands. It covers a large territory consisting of 34 provinces with over 300 ethnics groups and has the world's fourth-largest population. According to a report from the [40], there were 216,066 schools in Indonesia consisting of 148,673 elementary schools, 39,637 secondary schools, 13,692 senior high schools and 14,064 vocational high schools. The imbalance of a single training centre with hundreds of thousands of school principals spread throughout Indonesia is a major problem.

As a result, 'many principals sought special training and developmental programs to meet their particular leadership needs, such as pursuing a postgraduate program' ([72]: 8). Unfortunately, in many cases, having a master's degree is not enough because some programmes are focused on theoretical approaches rather than practical approaches. Therefore, to improve the capacity for school principals to lead and manage, Indonesia needs to have enough training centres to train and develop school principals in different areas. Rationally, with the larger area of Indonesia, the school leadership centres should be available in each province.

In addition to increasing the number of training centres, some studies have indicated that it is also necessary to improve the quality of training for the principals in Indonesia ([35]; [72]). According to the study of [72], it was found that LP2KS was intended to strengthen the leadership practice of principals, but, in the current context of decentralization, this was not occurring.

[8] argued that being a principal is a different role from classroom teaching and requires specific preparation. Thus, the process by which new principals adapt to an unfamiliar role, often in a new context, may be understood as socialization. Professional socialization refers to leadership learning, either deliberate or inadvertent, through which principals acquire the knowledge and skills required to lead schools. In most education systems, there is no systematic preparation programme and principals often 'learn on the job', drawing on their earlier professional experience ([7]). Thus, despite the establishment of a mandatory principal training qualification at a national level (LP2KS), principals still find they are under-prepared to deliver all that is expected from them because of decentralization. The pressure to produce better school outcomes with reduced resources and constrained budgets is clearly a major pressure on new and existing principals in Indonesia, along with greater political interference in the day-to-day running of their school ([72]).

In addition to the lack of pre-service education for principals, in-service training programmes for principals have not be implemented in all regions of Indonesia ([80]). In-service training is also important so that principals can improve existing competencies and develop new competencies. According to [2], principals need more training to develop their strategic leadership and management skills and to increase their understanding of authority, power, and responsibility to the council members. For instance, [32] recommended transformational leadership training for school principals because it could help principals become more effective school leaders. The study of [72] indicated that some of the principals who participated in district-level training and preparation expressed negative experiences. Recently, [35] also found that principals who have participated in the principal training are still having difficulties in mastering the required competencies.

Therefore, increasing the number of principal training centres in all Indonesian provinces is highly necessary. This will provide a structure whereby high-quality training, both pre-field and in-service, can be provided in a way that matches the geographic vastness and the ethnic and cultural diversity of Indonesia.

Conducting more collaboration with overseas scholars will be helpful to increase the number of studies on school leadership. Many studies have suggested there is a need to improve the study of school leadership in the Indonesian context ([13]; [32]; [72]). Collaborative relationships between colleagues are an important way to increase the capacity to conduct research and build a knowledge base. The study of [24]: 202) concluded that 'a suitable coordination strategy for the region should incorporate formal and informal strategies, be intermediate in scale and organized around a common research agenda'. In other words, to establish the improvement of school leadership quality in the Indonesian education context, overseas scholars should be actively involved.

Key overseas scholars in the field of educational leadership, for example, Philip Hallinger (USA) and Tony Bush (UK), have made a huge impact on the development and implementation of suitable school leadership in Asian and African countries. For instance, some countries, such as China ([67]), Thailand ([44]), Vietnam ([52]), Malaysia ([11]) and South Africa ([10]) have conducted collaborative research with overseas scholars to improve the school leadership theories and practice within their own educational context. These collaborations have contributed significantly to increasing the number of published studies in each country.

[2] suggested that the effective implementation of school-based management policies and programme in developing countries may need to be accompanied by strategies provided by international donor agencies in collaboration with relevant scholarly academics to encourage government agencies in building the capacities of schools. This type of collaboration not only provides improved knowledge of how school principals should work at school, but also facilitates the direct implementation of that knowledge. In other words, the implementation of school-based management policies and programmes can be improved by inviting overseas scholars to investigate collaboratively with Indonesian scholars and organizations.

'It is essential to select (and develop) suitable individuals for school leadership positions' ([39]: 304). Recently, school principal selection has become a crucial issue in some countries, such as Ethiopia ([21]), England ([41]), Brazil ([59]) and, more particularly, Indonesia. It is because the appointment of school principals is not solely based on competencies. Consequently, it tends to lead to behaviours of the school principal that are transactional rather than transformational ([38]).

A recruitment and selection procedure is very essential to select the leaders in any educational organization. This is because the processes of recruitment can impact significantly on the quality of school leadership ([61]). According to [65], there are several factors that can improve the effectiveness of the principal selection process and also reduce potential bias. These include: the development and application of standardized procedures and measures for reviewing applications; training of selection personnel to avoid bias, including withdrawal from the process if they have a personal or professional relationship to any of the candidates that could pose a conflict of interest; and the involvement of trained selection personnel. In other words, rigorous standards should be developed, and principals should be held accountable to meet those standards.

According to [36], the selection of some school principals in Indonesia was not based on the candidate's professionalism, but instead depended on the relationship with the person in authority. [72] also suggested that this has subtly and unintentionally reinforced a situation where appointing principals is not solely based on merit or qualification but rather is a matter of political expedience. For instance, favouritism can become a problem in the principal selection process and who a candidate knows can play a role in selection ([65]). If the school principal is not chosen based on the candidate's skill or competence, then problems will likely occur.

[61]: 169) asserted that 'One way of ensuring greater transparency in school leader selection is to develop overall guidelines for recruitment processes'. Furthermore, [66] developed three fundamental principles that are necessary for effective recruitment practices. First, recruitment should be based on a sound understanding of the attributes required for success, such as knowledge, skills, abilities and other significant qualities for the particular position. Second, the system in placement should utilize a 'portfolio' of assessments and/or screening tools that can determine the level of the candidate's attributes. Finally, the tools used for candidacy assessment should be selected based on their accuracy, practicality, fairness and legality. Accordingly, in the context of school leadership selection procedure in Indonesia, the most fundamental step is to establish standardized procedures and measures for applications. A recent study, in the Province of Aceh, Indonesia, conducted by [81], recommended that the recruitment of school principals should involve a standardized test consisting of all constructs of leadership competence. Standardization is a critical part of developing the process to guide principal selection. Another important aspect is establishing a principal selection committee that is fair and free of outside interference. Politics and conflict of interest must be avoided; therefore, the committee members should be professional.

This paper investigates school leadership in the Indonesian education context by using a systematic literature review from nine high-quality journals. The results of the study identified that school leadership in Indonesia is still at the beginning stage in the development process and needs further improvement. The total number of articles published about Indonesian school leadership in the eight-core Educational Leadership and Management journals is very limited. According to the systematic review of 16 articles, three main problems related to Indonesian school leadership were found. These include the lack of capacity to lead and manage schools, insufficiency of published studies on educational leadership in Indonesia, and inappropriateness of principal selection processes. To deal with these problems, it is suggested to develop principal training centres in all the provinces of Indonesia, conduct more research collaboration with overseas scholars, and improve the principal selection procedures. Accordingly, educational stakeholders, policymakers and scholars must understand comprehensively the current school leadership condition in Indonesia.

This study provides significant contributions to the field of school leadership. In educational leadership studies, this study is the first to review systematically school leadership in the Indonesian education context. Thus, it can contribute to the theory and practice of school leadership in Indonesia. In order to improve the knowledge and practice of school leadership, the main issues identified in this systematic review should be given serious attention. Moreover, the Indonesian government, particularly the Ministry of Education and Culture, as the primary policymakers, should seriously consider establishing principal training centres for each province in Indonesia based on that region's own characteristics including culture, economics, society and politics. Finally, the local and central governments should also avoid to conduct the appointment of principals in the process of selection. They must cooperate to establish principal selection procedures in order to hire the best principals and thereby improve the quality of education. Finally, foreign scholars should be involved in conducting research on school leadership.

The strength of this study is the high quality of the sources. It can be recommended that further research may investigate different sources in order to gain a more comprehensive view of school leadership in Indonesia. Particularly, Indonesian scholars may use literature on school leadership that has been published in the Indonesian language. Some educational leadership journals accredited by the government may be more beneficial because their quality has been examined. Other databases, such as ERIC, Scopus, and so forth may be useful for future study.

In addition to academic sources, professional or government reports, such as those from the Ministry of Education and Culture, can also be added to the data on school leadership. Finally, because there is no device to measure the quality of school leadership in the Indonesian educational context, it is strongly recommended that a system be developed for measuring the principal competencies needed. This should be conducted in accordance with the Regulation of the Minister of National Education and Culture No. 13/2007 on the Standard of School Principals which consists of five competencies – entrepreneurship, personal, managerial, supervision and social – that should be mastered by school principals. Therefore, this system of measurement can be used to evaluate individuals who are potential candidates and also those who are already involved in school leadership.

The author's special thanks are addressed to the editor in chief of the journal Educational Management Administration & Leadership, Prof. Tony Bush, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on this paper. I would also like to thank my colleagues for commenting and proofreading the final manuscript. Finally, my unlimited thanks are addressed to my parents, both Esrom Lumban Gaol (†) and Sento Sihombing, who have provided many supports while I was doing this research.