The Administrative Process as a Determinant of Secondary School Teachers’ Professional Development: The Experience of Anglophones in Upper-Nkam Division

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to examine the influence of secondary school administrative process on the professional development of Anglophone teachers in a francophone zone. Specifically, this work sought answers to questions such as; what influence does policy-making have on teachers’ professional growth?; is there any relationship between decision-making and teachers’ professional development?; how does checking/control affect teachers’ professional growth?; and what impact does supervision have on teachers’ professional development?.  The descriptive survey research design was used. A self-constructed questionnaire was used as the main instrument for data collection, but was backed up with an interview guide. The simple random sampling (to select schools) and accidental sampling (to select teachers) techniques were used to obtain a sample of 95 teachers of the secondary schools in the Upper-Nkam Division of the Western Region of Cameroon. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and results presented in the form frequency and percentages with the help of SPSS. The Chi-Square test of independence was used to verify the hypotheses. It was found that at a 0.05 level of significance, there is statistically significant relationship between policy-making and teachers’ professional growth; decision making has a statistically significant effect on teachers’ professional growth; statistically checking/control significantly affect teachers’ professional growth; supervision significantly has an effect teachers’ professional growth. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended amongst others that school principals should involve teachers in the policy and decision-making processes.

Keywords: Administrative Process, Teachers, Professional Development, Anglophone and Cameroon