Evaluation of the effectiveness of state school inspectorate office in improving public secondary school teacher instructional practice in urban district, Zanzibar

This study was concerned with School Inspection (SI) process in Zanzibar. The main aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of the State School Inspectorate Office in improving public secondary school teacher instructional practice (TIP) in urban district, Zanzibar. There were three research objectives: To examine ways in which the roles of school inspectors facilitate improvement of teacher instructional practice; To determine the efficacy of major types of school inspection in improving teacher instructional practice and To explore the usefulness of the measures proposed by school inspectors during school inspection visits in handling problems that undermine teacher instructional practice in public secondary schools. The theoretical rooting of the idea of school inspection was based on management theories, which are Classical Management Theories and Administrative Management that are concerned with how to manage works in organizations. The study was qualitative using multiple case holistic design and purposive sampling technique. The study employed sixty-one participants, including fifty secondary school teachers, ten school heads and one school inspectorate officer. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, observations and documentary review. Data were analyzed using content analysis. The study findings revealed that the roles played by school inspectors stimulates and increases appropriate instructional process, promote creativity to teachers, suggest the best ways teaching in relation to student ability, and insist on the use of modern, current and appropriate teaching methods and evaluation techniques to teachers. The study also revealed that basic inspection, as the major type of school inspection is capable in remaining and instructing teachers to be responsible and accountable, preparative, creative and supportive; addressing instructional problems facing teachers and influencing teachers in observing good instructional techniques. However, the study revealed that there is a need for school inspection to strictly concentrate on instructional practice during basic inspection visits, rather than focussing on four books (scheme of work, lesson plan, daily records and lesson notes books) as the criterion of measuring teachers' work performance. The findings also revealed that, the measures proposed by school inspectors during school inspection visits to handle teacher instructional problems help in stimulating teachers' responsibility and accountabilities, providing supportive instructional skills to teachers and in building instructional capacity to teachers. The study recommends that State School Inspectorate Office in Zanzibar should be conducted in a more systematic, well prepared and organized way that would make easier for school inspection process to trace the root causes of the problems that undermine teacher instructional practices and provide the best solutions to such problems. Similarly, the basic inspection should be conducted frequently at least once in each academic term, and should focus mainly on classroom observations.