Leadership Practices, Policy Enactment, and Systemic Implementation of Inclusive Education: A Qualitative Inquiry among Receiving Teachers and School Heads

Abstract

Inclusive education had increasingly been institutionalized as a central principle of equitable basic education; however, its successful implementation had depended not only on policy mandates but also on how school leaders and teachers interpreted, enacted, and sustained these policies within their respective school contexts. This qualitative study explored the leadership practices, policy enactment processes, and systemic conditions that had shaped the implementation of inclusive education among receiving teachers and school heads Schools Division Office of the City of Ilagan, Isabela. Specifically, it examined how school heads had exercised leadership in advancing inclusive practices, how receiving teachers had interpreted and enacted inclusive education policies, the institutional and systemic conditions that had facilitated or constrained implementation, and the mechanisms through which schools had attempted to bridge the gap between policy expectations and classroom realities. Findings had indicated that inclusive education had been implemented as a negotiated and context-dependent process rather than as a straightforward application of policy. School leadership, teacher capacity, collaborative structures, resource availability, and institutional support had collectively influenced the extent to which inclusion had been translated into meaningful classroom practice. The study concluded that sustainable inclusive education had required distributed leadership, coherent policy translation, continuing professional development, stronger interprofessional collaboration, and system-level mechanisms responsive to the realities of receiving schools. The findings had offered implications for educational leadership, teacher development, policy implementation, and institutional planning for inclusive education.