Practices and Problems Related to Educational Supervision in, SNNP Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Instructional supervision is a professional support provided to teachers so as to improve quality of instruction.. However, the actual movement in favor of it seems unsatisfactory in government secondary schools of Hadiya zone. Hence, the purpose of the study is to identify major problems that affect current practices of instructional supervision in the study area. Sample woredas and schools were selected by using purposive sampling techniques. However, all the school based supervisors and supervisee teachers in the sample schools and external supervisors were included in the sample of the study by using availability sampling techniques. Descriptive survey method was employed as the research method in the study. Questionnaire, interview and observation were used as the instruments for the data collection. Pre-test of questionnaire had been taken before it is normally administered on the respondents and the data collected was analyzed by using percentages and chi-square. The findings of the data indicated that secondary schools supervisors support teachers in curriculum, staff and instructional development functions of supervision occasionally. Although they hold actual classroom observation, they are found to be deficient in the emphases they give for the application of major tasks under each step in the supervisory procedures. They also possess and apply insufficient supervisory skills to support their supervisees. Besides to that lack of motivation on the part of supervisors, shortage of budget, insufficient knowledge about supervision, lack of co-ordination and workload of external supervisors are found to be the major problems encountered effectiveness and efficiency in the practices of instructional supervision and no significant measure was taken to alleviate the problems. As a result teachers were failed to achieve instructional objective. Based on the findings and conclusions, recommendations are made to alleviate existing problems. Accordingly, it is recommended to develop monthly field attendance sheet that can be signed by the supervisors and principals or their representatives to follow and support the supervisors in relation to their work assignment, to develop appropriate supervisory procedures to be followed and impose supervisors to apply them, to provide directives to schools and supervisors regarding supervision, and to arrange different training and retraining programs, In addition,  schools are suggested to generate own income, to allocate its share to supervision, to have cost effective plans for supervision and act accordingly. Lastly, it is recommended to structure secondary schools supervisions in similar way to that of primary schools, and others which are assumed to solve the identified problems were recommended.

Keywords: Instructional supervision, Secondary government schools, Practices and Problems