SUPERVISORY TECHNIQUES COMMONLY ADOPTED BY SCHOOL SUPERVISORS IN EDUCATION IN NIGERIAN SCHOOL

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Education is a social service that is provided for the general population of a country for the enlightenment of the people. Through education, skills are acquired, and this enables a country to develop. To be able to effectively provide education, there is need to ensure that the educational system is reliable. Reliability in terms of educational system can be enhanced through supervision.

Nigeria, like so may other developing countries of the world, has strong faith in education as the key to economic progress and political stability. Education constitutes the major engine for sustainable human development, as well as the fulcrum around which every activity revolves. Development experts, Aderounmu and Ehiametalor (1985) posit that no nation  can rise beyond its educational level. Indeed, nations that have achieved feats in the world heavily rely on the instrumentality of education of education (Onwuakpa, 2000). Since education becomes formalized in Nigeria in about 1842, several attempts have been made to eradicate poor performance in ex animations and to ensure effectiveness. This effectiveness in education can be achieved through supervision. The need to improve the teaching and learning capabilities of teachers and students is often the basis of supervision. Thus, supervision of instruction is interactional in the sense that it involves a relationship between the supervisor and supervisee.

The quality of educational administrators, teachers, and learners in any nation determines the quality of its citizenry. Through education, skills are acquired and this enables a country to develop. To be able to effectively provide education, there is need to ensure that educational system is reliable. Among the different personnel working for improved quality of education are school supervisors. The kind of relationship that can best support the supervisory function in the school is often difficult to develop and maintain. The reason for this is pinned to the diversity of human behaviour in our organization setting. Efficient and effective utilization of the limited resources is therefore a prerequisite to the maintenance of standards and achievement of goals. Instructional supervision as a functional domain in school administration needs some of these scarce resources in order for it to discharge its responsibilities toward goal attainment.

However, supervision is a process common to all profession and occupation. According to Onuoha, (1986), the original meaning of supervision is derived from the Latin word Super-video which means to oversee. In order words, supervision has been variably referred to as activity directed at helping teachers to improve instruction and job performance. It helps to resolve or forestall problems concomitant of the teaching - learning process towards ensuring successful attainment of education/learning goals. Olagboye (2004) further defines supervision as the art of being in charge of a group of workers and as well responsible for ensuring that they do their work properly. To Adegbola (2006), supervision is a process that is common to all professions and occupations. According to him, supervision is the practice of monitoring the performance of school staff, using befitting and amicable techniques to ameliorate identified flaws among staff thereby improving on their performance and increasing the standard of school.

Nevertheless, from the above definitions it could be inferred that supervision connotes an interaction between at least two persons for the improvement of activities. It could as well be seen as the process of guiding, encouraging, directing and motivating workers so as to improve their output. Relatively, school supervision emphasizes the process of overseeing the work of the school line staff. This activity or function constitutes an integral part of the duties of an educational administrator. Educational Administration therefore, involves all activity including organizing and prescribing of formal relationships among educational personnel and the resources available to them to accomplish set goals in the delivery of education goals. Hence, the importance of supervision as a tool of educational administration to galvanize school staff activity towards achieving desired educational results.  

It is against this background that this study attempts to examine the extent to which school supervision affects quality of school management in Education District I, Lagos State.

Statement of Problem

Modern educational system like other religious, political, social and economic systems are becoming increasingly complex. These complexities in Nigeria and other third world countries tend to be characterized by phenomena such as high student/teacher ratio increase in the directions and dimensions of programmes and operational goals and procedures, inadequacy of funds and material resources even in the face of inflation trends, poor quality of teachers, student’ uninterested approach to learning etc. it is accepted that these factors impact on the system’s capacity to install and maintain a viable programme of quality control as regards school management.

At the re-emergence of democracy in Nigeria in May, 1999 after sixteen years of protracted period of military dictatorship, free education at primary and secondary levels was re-introduced in many states of the federation. This gave rise to the explosion of more secondary schools with an attendant increasing expenditure on equipment teaching aids, facilities and teachers’ emoluments. This situation called for an enlarged energetic supervisory unit for effective and efficient adequate quality control of instruction and school management. Thus in addition to the federal inspectorate of education in the Federal capital territory, there is a federal inspectorate of education office in each of the thirty-six (36) states capitals as well as state inspectorate departments.

Despite the spread of supervisory department all over the federation, the general notion of interest holders in our educational sector is that school management is not doing enough to ensure that schools are properly supervised and that the quality of instructions in our schools is on the decline. This notion is further boosted by the poor performance of students in external examinations. 

In 2006 and 2007 for example, over 59% of the candidates in Nigeria who sat for the West African School Certificate Exams failed Mathematics and English Language (WAEC, Lagos 2007). This study is therefore geared towards ensuring that the quality of school management is on the high and to find out the factors that militate against effective supervision, which encourages poor performance on the part of the students. This study also will seek to articulate the way forward in the supervisor/supervisee relationship and to seek ways of improving teacher/students relationship, which will ultimately translate to good performance.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study includes the following:

1.  To identify the supervisory techniques commonly adopted by school supervisors in Education District I, Lagos State.

2.  To determine how regular and adequate is school supervision in Education District I, Lagos State.

3. To examine the perception of principals and head teachers on supervisory activities in Education District I, Lagos State.

4. To assess how influential supervision has been on quality school management in Education District I, Lagos State.

5. To determine if there was a difference in the level of supervision existing in the public and private schools. 

Research Question

The following research questions were raised to guide the study.

1.  What supervisory techniques are commonly used by school supervisors in Education District I, Lagos State?

2.  How regular and adequate is school supervision in Education District I, Lagos State?

3. What is the perception of principals and head teachers on supervisory activities in Education District I, Lagos State?

4. How influential has supervision been on quality school management in Education District I, Lagos State?

5. Is there any difference in the level of supervision existing in the public and private schools? 

Research Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were postulated for testing during the study.

1. There is no significant difference in the perception of principals and head teachers on supervisory activities in Education District I, Lagos State.

2. Supervision has not significantly influenced quality school management in Education District I, Lagos State.

3. There is no significant difference in the level of supervision existing in the public and private schools as perceived by the teachers in Education District I, Lagos State.

Significance of the Study

This study is significant as it will assist the educational policy makers and other relevant development agencies understand that: Supervisory agents and school managers need to be highly qualified. There should be seasoned professional teachers with adequate training in educational supervision, management, and human relations. This study will also enhance the development and growth of social, economic, political, religious, and educational needs of our society; which could be enhanced or improved through quality supervision and school management.

The findings of  the study will encourage better performance in supervisory work and school management skills which will have positive impact on the students’ short and long-term achievement depending or regular in-service training, conferences, seminar, workshops, short form courses of the supervisors and school managers.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

Due to time and financial constraints, the researcher will limit this work to 10 (ten) Public Secondary Schools in Lagos State District I, in Lagos State.

Limitation of the Study

Although the study will survey the problems and prospects of school management and supervision in secondary schools, only ten public secondary schools selected from Lagos State District I, will be used ten (10) principals; ten (10) V.P Acc, ten supervisors and sixty (60) teachers will be used as a data base of the study.

Definitions of terms

The following terms were taken for the purpose of the study to mean the following:

Supervision: This is that aspect of educational administration, which has to do with providing assistance for the development of better teaching and learning situation.

Supervisory Personnel (In educational system): They are those with the title supervision or inspectors.

Inspectors: this means to visit in order to make sure that rules and standard are being observed.

Supervisory Techniques: This is an array of activities that the skillful instructional supervisor can utilize to bring about desirable effect in teacher behaviour for achieving teaching effectiveness.  

Instructional Supervision: This means the behaviour officially designed by the organization that directly affects teachers’ behaviour in such a way to facilitate pupils learning and achieve the goals of the school.

Educational Quality: this is the characters of the set of elements in the input process and output of the educational system that provide services that satisfy the society.

Management: this s the process by managers or school heads assure that resources are obtained and used effectively to accomplish the organization or schools objectives.

 

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