Paper Title
The Influence Of School Leaders’ Instructional Leadership Towards Teachers’ Functional Competency Across 21st Century Education

Abstract
21st century education focuses on three key components namely technology knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge or curriculum. All of these components need to be optimized by the advocators of school excellence - the school administrators and the teachers. This study aims to examine the relationship between the instructional leadership among school leaders and the functional competency of the teacher, to identify the dimensions of instructional leadership that contribute to the teachers’ functional competency and further explore additional factors which contribute to the teachers’ functional competency at school. This study involved 225 teachers teaching in high-performance schools in Kedah. The instrument related to instructional leadership of school administrators had been adapted from the 'Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale' while the instrument for the teachers’ functional competency was based on several past studies instruments adapted from the Integrated Assessment Module for Education Officers (PBPPP) developed by the MOE Curriculum Development Division. The findings reveal that there is a very strong and significant positive relationship (r = .956, p = .00) between instructional leadership of the school administrators and the level of teachers’ functional competency. The results of the regression analysis report that the three independent variables could explain 15.1% variance in dependent variables (R2 = .151, F (2, 214) = 80.74, p <0.01), by which the dimension of Promoting School Learning Climate demonstrates a stronger influence on the functional competency of teachers, followed by the dimension of Managing the Curriculum and Teaching and the dimension of Defining School Mission. Finally, an excellent school model is constructed which summarizes all the key elements of the involved variables based on 21st-century learning and teaching. Keywords: Instructional leadership, teachers’ functional competency, school learning climate, 21st century education.