Assessing perceptions of education stakeholders on instructional supervision and how it affects teaching and learning process in kinondoni district

The purpose of this study was to assess perceptions of education stakeholders on instructional supervision and how it affects the teaching and learning process in Kinondoni district. The education stakeholders were School Heads, Ward Education Coordinators (WECs), District Chief inspector and Science Teachers. The study was guided by four objectives which were; To identify various instructional supervisory methods and activities mostly selected as well as used by School Heads and WECs to supervise teachers in the classroom; To assess types of feedback given by School Heads and WECs to supervised teachers in schools in relation to teaching and learning: To examine School Heads, WECs and Science Teachers perceptions on use of instructional supervision and how it affects the teaching and learning process as well as To examine challenges faced by School Heads, teachers and WECs when conducting instructional supervision during teaching and learning process. A mixed research approach and case study design were employed in the study. The sampling procedures were simple random sampling, purposive sampling and stratified sampling. Questionnaire, interview and documentary review were used to collect data from twenty heads of schools and fifty eight science teachers of public and private schools; fourteen WECs; and Kinondoni District Chief inspector, in Dar es Salaam region. Quantitative data were analysed by using frequency and percentages while qualitative data were analysed by using content analysis method. Man-U Whitney statistical test was used to compare classroom observation activities between public schools and private schools. The study findings revealed that School Heads, science teachers and Ward Education Coordinators perceived positively and negatively instructional supervision. They felt that it was the process of helping teachers to problems they encountered in classroom as also is the process of evaluating and inspecting teachers instructional weaknesses, errors and content. Furthermore the study revealed that instructional supervision was perceived as helping to improve teaching and learning process in many ways such as improvement in teaching methodology and techniques, use of various assessment techniques and teachers involving students in lesson activities. The use of Man-U Whitney statistical test revealed that heads of public schools conducted fewer or non classroom observations compared to private schools. Moreover, the study found the following challenges perceived by School Heads, WECs, teachers and the District Chief Inspector while conducting instructional supervision: School Heads as well as WECs are overloaded with many tasks, no enough time to support all science teachers instructionally, no enough supervision guidelines as well as supervision skills and lack of instructional supervision training especially to public schools compared to private schools. It is therefore concluded that the positive perceptions should be taken as the basis for strengthening the process of instructional supervision especially to public secondary schools so as to improve teaching and learning process, in which finally leads to improve students performance as it seem in private schools which perform better in the NECTA examinations. Therefore, the study recommended that School Heads and WECs should be provided with training on various instructional supervision methods such as clinical supervision and mentoring so that to be able to supervise their teachers as recommended by Ministry of education and vocational training (2008).