The Current Practices and Problems of School Based Supervision in Primary Schools of Jile Timuga Woreda

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the current practice and problems of school based supervision in government primary schools of Jile Timuga Woreda of Oromia Zone. A descriptive survey design of research methodology was employed. Regarding sampling, there were 39 primary schools grouped in 10 cluster centres. From these cluster centres all were selected using comprehensive sampling techniques. 13 primary schools were selected using multi-stage sampling technique. Having these schools 112 (32.36%) teachers was selected out of 342 teachers using proportional stratified sampling followed by systematic random sampling to select each teacher from the strata i.e. schools were considered as strata. This constitutes 56 % the respondents. All teacher respondents were used in the analysis. On the other hand 65 school based supervisors, 13 principals and 10 cluster supervisors were selected using comprehensive sampling techniques as they are highly responsible for supervisory practices and their number was also manageable. The main instruments used to collect data were questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The questionaire was made to be closed ended followed by some open ended questions and designed as five point Likert scaled type. The reliability of the questionnaire was checked using cronbach alpha method after pilot test was conducted. The face and content validity of the tools were also checked by experienced experts in the study area. Frequency count and percentage were used for the analysis of general characteristics of respondents. Mean and one sample t-test method of analysis were used to analyse the data collected through questionnaire and also narration for interview items. The results of the study reveal that the school based supervisory practice were ineffective. School based supervisors were involved in the difficult task of supervision without having sufficient training. School supervisors were also inefficient in promoting professional competence of teachers. Furthermore, the study revealed that SBS was affected by many problems that are related to the school itself, the supervisor and the clients themselves.