THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SCHOOL SUPERVISION AND QUALITY ASSURANCE IN PUBLIC SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN EDUCATION
Chapiter 1
Introduction
1.1 Study’s Background
In Nigerian schools, instruction and learning take place within a formal organizational framework that contains safeguards to guarantee that institutions are well-monitored and that the quality of what they provide is upheld and continually improved (Bolaji, 2006). A strong inspectorate, tasked with ensuring and maintaining excellence in resource allocation, curriculum delivery, and educational standards, has a substantial impact on teaching in schools. Any policy aimed at raising accomplishment must be based on the curriculum, which is defined as everything that happens in a school, including assessment in all of its forms.
School supervision focuses on giving instructors and students expert aid and direction to increase successful teaching and learning for better student learning. The goal of school supervision is to assist teachers in enhancing their classroom teaching strategies. Every successful school needs strong school supervision. School administrators can reinforce and develop teaching techniques that will help students learn more effectively by effectively supervising instruction (Asiyai, 2009).
According to a research by Asiyai (2009), teachers’ performance in extracurricular activities, community connections at school, daily lesson preparation, and attendance at classes all increased when they were regularly observed by school administrators. Effective instructional delivery and standard maintenance in the educational system can be achieved by principals regularly monitoring instruction (Ayodele, 2002).
A strong working relationship between the supervisor and supervisee is necessary for efficient school supervision. Reamer (2009) said that if there is close, positive cooperation between the supervisor and the supervisees, many difficulties can be avoided. This assumes that the school administrator should establish a favorable climate for learning and teaching as well as a strong sense of community inside the campus. As a result, school administrators should foster relationships and establish conditions that encourage collaboration and flexibility among students, teachers, and other staff members. In order to achieve such cooperative performance, according to Ducker (2008), the appropriate structures, shared values, and ongoing training and development programs must be in place.
In order to promote successful teaching and learning at all levels and in all facets of the educational system, quality assurance in education entails the consistent provision and use of high standard materials. When the deployment of its method is not left till the program’s conclusion, it is significant (Fasasi, 2006). The process of ensuring that educational outputs—graduating students—are handled with the necessary staff and high-quality programs, facilities, and materials to fulfill the standards of universal acceptance is known as quality assurance. A study program offered by an institution is a guarantee of confidence and certainty that standards are being upheld and improved. The achievement of high-quality teaching and learning activities is a continuous process.
Quality assurance, according to Walklin (2005), is the prevention of non-performance through effective planning, execution, monitoring, and evaluation. It is a method of running a business so that every task and procedure is carried out correctly the first time and every time. According to Ukeje, Akabogu, and Ndu (1992), effective planning by the management that includes every member of the staff in the activities of planning, execution, monitoring, and evaluation utilizing specified standards and objectives is what enables quality assurance in a school environment.
However, quality assurance cannot completely ensure the creation of high-quality products since in the educational system, quality is decided by the principal, head teachers, teachers, or students, not by the general public. For instance, Richard (2006) claimed that secondary schools must take ownership of quality assurance and not view it as an ongoing burden.
Fasasi (2006) asserts that quality assurance in school management places a strong emphasis on monitoring while also pushing and assisting schools to succeed. It places a strong emphasis on improvement and the utilization of student and school data to track academic progress toward predetermined goals. Additionally, it emphasizes holding administrators and employees accountable for the accomplishment of their primary roles and obligations and supports the self-management of schools through collaborative review and self-evaluation. It supports the execution of national and local strategies and helps to develop and share best practices (Fasasi, 2006).
According to Babalola (2004), proactive measures to ensure the quality of inputs on the teaching-learning process, academic achievement of students, and school environment are included in quality assurance in education. As a result, a high-quality educational institution should have high-quality inputs such as students, teachers, facilities, school curricula, and government policies. In addition, the way in which the inputs are processed from the first to the last years of an educational programme, as well as the quality of assessment of the entire teaching, should be of the highest caliber.
Any educational system’s success depends on its operators or implementers, who play a highly important and noticeable role. No matter how admirable and lofty the goals of any system or program may be, they will be challenging to achieve if poorly carried out. The technique and manner in which school administrators and teachers carry out an educational program in the classroom determines whether it is successful or unsuccessful. It is one thing to create a great program and prepare all the necessary facilities (both human and material), but quite another to create a supportive learning environment and successfully implement the program. If the required quality is to be ensured and the education of any nation is to be productive, the requirement for an effective oversight of instruction cannot be overstated. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the frequency with which claims of declining educational standards are made. According to Aina (1994), education is in crisis and needs to be drastically rethought and remade. All levels of education are affected, along with all of their key components, including governance, funding, access, quality, relevance, and direction. In actuality, the crisis poses a threat to the entire process of national systems’ social and cultural reproduction. The issue is not the quality of education, as Fafunwa accurately noted in Fagbamiye (2004): “What is actually falling is our ability to meet the set standards.” The upshot of this is that while standards for education have already been defined, practitioners and implementers have frequently failed to ensure that these standards are met and upheld.
Ajayi (1997) also notes that teachers have been charged with shirking their responsibilities and not being as engaged to their work as they once were. Even school administrators have not been exempt from these critiques. They too have been charged with failing to recognize their obligations in terms of leadership and supervision. Many school leaders are inefficient at carrying out their duties related to curriculum and instruction, according to Adeyemi (2002).
In his study, Igbo (2002) discovered a direct correlation between the caliber of classroom instruction and the caliber of student learning. Additionally, Kinutai and Zachariah conducted a study in 2012 on the impact of teacher monitoring on students’ academic performance in Kenya. Academic performance of the students and instructional supervision were found to be positively correlated. The knowledge, lesson planning, and teacher motivation that go into delivering a lesson in the classroom will determine its quality. The effectiveness of the school administrator’s supervision can have a favorable impact on these factors.
There have been numerous adjustments made to the instructional supervision procedure. In schools, it changed from autocratic inspection to a more democratic kind of instruction oversight. Through instructional monitoring, teachers and administrators can enhance not only the classroom but the entire institution. Ani (2007) provided greater clarification on the UBE’s stated goals for instructional monitoring, stating them as follows:
Ensuring that educators successfully carry out their tasked duties.
Ensuring that educators are equipped to fulfill their duties.
Ensuring sure new teachers have the training they need to perform their jobs well.
Ensuring that teachers receive assistance as needed.
Providing teachers with expert information.
directing teachers to the sources of teaching resources.
Giving instructors technical support, particularly in the areas of teaching strategies and the use of teaching aids.
Making sure that order is upheld during class instruction.
Offering assistance or advice on how to enhance the performance of ineffective teachers.
Creating an environment that encourages the identification of instructors with unique skills and traits.
The rates of student promotion, repetition, retention, withdrawal, and dropout are all significantly impacted by the quality of the teachers.
There is hope for the graduation of a properly skilled, knowledgeable, and productive workforce when quality education is made available to the public. The quality of education provided at Nigeria’s three levels of education has drawn criticism from several academicians in that country. According to Aghenta (2001), many B.Ed. graduates are currently underprepared and unable to deliver the desperately needed high-quality education. He forewarned that the already low quality of education in Nigeria will deteriorate further since the poorly prepared teachers are paid extremely cheaply, lack motivation, and are frequently abruptly fired from their jobs before they can gain experience.
The foundation of any nation’s development is education. It equips men with the means to go through the world. What happiness do parents feel when they see their kids get a good education? It is shocking to learn that education nowadays is of poor quality, particularly in Lagos State, the case study for this research. The quality of education has substantially declined from the primary through the tertiary levels. Both primary school graduates and secondary school graduates struggle with writing their own names and correctly spelling notes on chalkboards (Aghenta, 2006; Ayeni, 2012). The idea that graduates from our postsecondary institutions are merely glorified secondary school graduates is equally intolerable. Writing formal job letters in the conventional format might be challenging for recent grads. There is no denying that overall, the quality of our education has declined.
Most nations, both developed and developing, place a high priority on the need to raise the standard of education. Countries now place a greater emphasis on the operation of schools, teacher performance, and methods for assessing and enhancing these factors as a result of the growing emphasis on student accomplishment (UNESCO/IIEP, 2011).
The school supervision service is nearly often the primary player in charge of overseeing and assisting with schools and teachers. Supervisors are supposed to increase quality through their activities. However, decision-makers and schools frequently criticize the operation of this service and doubt its efficacy. The objections center on a variety of issues, including the frequency of supervision visits, the absence of adequate follow-up on reports, and the lack of influence supervision has on the caliber of instruction and learning. Therefore, a number of nations have made considerable reforms to turn school monitoring into a true service for quality enhancement (UNESCO, 2011).
The current trend toward greater school autonomy provides an additional basis for this focus on oversight and support of schools and teachers. Once in the classroom, teachers have always enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. However, schools now have more latitude to decide on matters as important as the curriculum, staffing, and money (FRN, 2004) in many nations throughout the world. The degree to which schools can rely on support services will determine how well they can employ this expanded independence, and supervision may be required to help them make decisions.
1.2 Description of the issue
Since it affects nearly every aspect of life, the recent decline in educational quality in Nigeria has been a major source of concern for everyone. Given the current state of the teaching force and performance standards, it is clear that school supervision is not up to par, according to Akpa (1999). Except when perks are attached or they are required to submit reports by the authorities, school supervisors are ineffective at ensuring that teachers obey the established norms (Onyia, 2010).
Additionally, the majority of head teachers do not actively plan and coordinate curriculum, manage innovation and change, or spend time in the classroom, much alone meaningfully oversee and assess teachers. On the other hand, according to Maranga (1993), inspector visits to schools are few, and when they do occur, the inspectors are less knowledgeable about how to manage specific curriculum difficulties than the teachers. According to UNESCO (2005), schools continue to struggle with a teacher shortage, poor student achievement, low retention and completion rates, and teacher and student indiscipline.
Anukam (2009) asserted that despite the nation’s allegedly declining educational standards, rising enrollment, and increased hiring of inexperienced teachers, efforts are being made to improve quality assurance of schools. The study will look at the quality control and school supervision in Education District I in Lagos State.
The study’s issue emerged from the background knowledge that, in the midst of contemporary secondary school challenges, the subject of quality control has been appropriately neglected for one cause or another. According to Adesina (2008), the Ministry of Education’s inspectors do not frequently visit schools, and when they do, their inspections are not very comprehensive. Rarely are inspection results made public, and there are no follow-ups to make sure that the problems found have been fixed.
It is crucial to perform a comparative study on school supervision and quality assurance in education given that school principals and inspectors from the Ministry of Education are intended to be instructional leaders.
1.3 Study’s Objectives
This study aims to investigate school supervision and quality control in public senior secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District I. Because of this, the researcher wants to learn:
1. to ascertain the connection between quality control and lesson plan supervision.
2. to investigate the impact of supervision of instruction on the efficiency of teaching and learning in Lagos State’s education district I’s public senior secondary schools.
3. To ascertain the connection between quality assurance and the supervision of instructional materials in Lagos State’s education district I’s public senior secondary schools.
4. to determine the impact of teaching and learning environment supervision on quality assurance in public senior secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District I.
1.4 Research Prompts
The following questions will be attempted to be answered in this study.
1. What connection exists between the oversight of lesson plans and quality control in Lagos State’s District I public senior secondary schools?
2. In Lagos State’s Education District I, public senior secondary schools, how might supervision of instruction affect quality assurance?
3. What connection exists between the oversight of instructional materials and quality control at public senior secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District I?
4. How would quality assurance be affected by teaching and learning environment supervision?
1.5 Importance of the Research
All parties involved in our educational system are expected to benefit from the study, just as they would have if there had been proper educational inspection and quality assurance in schools.
The study would assist various school administrators in comprehending the value of efficient school supervision as a quality guarantee at various educational levels, particularly at Secondary Schools in the state of Lagos.
It will make it possible for school administrators to be aware of the best school supervision strategies to use in order to maintain kids’ standardized academic achievement and the efficiency of the school.
The study will make people aware that research has been done in the area of school effectiveness and supervision, which will motivate teachers to work harder, follow rules and regulations, and implement any necessary corrections that are suggested to them in order to improve student learning performance.
In order to improve the standard of teaching and learning processes in secondary schools, the study will support the capacity development of teachers through intensive and frequent seminars and workshops based on needs assessments of teachers’ professional practices.
1.6 Study’s Purpose
The study’s focus will be on school supervision and quality control in public senior secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District I.
1.7 Operational Term Definition
The following definitions of phrases that are frequently used in academic contexts to describe various circumstances are provided:
Through direct observation and unbiased evaluation, excellent instruction seeks to advance standards, quality, and academic accomplishment.
Performance is defined as the remaining wealth after deducting inputs (the activities involved in processing the task) from outputs, or the ultimate outcomes.
School supervision is the ongoing process of direction based on periodic visits that emphasize particular elements of the school and its structure.
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