EDU 5818 INSTRUCTIONAL SUPERVISION – JNS SCOPE

EDU 5818INSTRUCTIONAL SUPERVISION –

JNS SCOPEDr. Ramli Bin Basri

Jabatan Asas PendidikanFakulti Pengajian Pendidikan

Universiti Putra MalaysiaRoom G28

Tel: 019 224 1332Emel: ramlibasri@putra.upm.edu.my

CONTENTS

1. SCOPE OF INSPECTION BY MALAYSIAN SCHOOL INSPECTORATE

2. ROLES AND FUNCTION OF SUPERVISORS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

1. SCOPE OF INSPECTION BY MALAYSIAN SCHOOL

INSPECTORATE

SCOPE OF INSPECTION

Function• Safeguard the quality in education • Provide professional advice and counseling

towards efficient and professional management of schools

…SCOPE OF INSPECTIONRole• Inspect, report and provide recommendations

to schools• Undertake educational research and empirical

research on classroom teaching and learning

SPECIFICATION OF SCOPE:

1. Inspection2. Professional advice and counseling3. Report to Minister of Education4. Publication5. Research6. Malaysian Education Standard Quality

INSPECTION ACTIVITIES1. Inspection2. Evaluation3. Monitoring4. Improvement5. Professional development6. Selection of award recipient: Quality School Award,

Ministers’ Quality Award7. Professional Development for School Inspectorate

SPECIFICATION OF BASIC INSPECTION ACTIVITIES

1. INSPECTIONa. Full inspectionb. Normal inspectionc. Thematic inspectiond. Special inspectione. Non-compliance inspection

NORMAL INSPECTION

• To evaluate T&L and the management of subjects

• 1 – 2 days by an inspector/inspectors • Using a standard inspection instrument• Collect data and information • Prepare finding and report of inspection

SPECIAL INSPECTION

• By order of the Minister or on the instruction of the Chief Inspector of Schools

• Objective to investigate or gather information on the status of a case or issue in school

SPECIFICATION OF BASIC INSPECTION ACTIVITIES

EVALUATION (SELECTION)a. Excellent Teachersb. Excellent Schoolsc. Ministers Quality Awardd. Excellent Principals

2. ROLES AND FUNCTION OF SUPERVISORS: A COMPARATIVE

STUDY

Topics to discuss• Supervisor’s job description.• Core Functions• Main role conflicts• What supervisors are doing – evidence research• New trends and innovations

- Towards a more coherent job description- Focus on school rather than on teachers.- Increasing role of supervision in system

evaluation- Towards more openness and transparency

SUPERVISOR’S JOB DESCRIPTION

• Traditional supervision services are generaly homogeneous as far as human resources are concerned.

• They basically do the same things in different geographical areas or for different types of school.

• Job descriptions of supervisors do vary considerably between countries according to the specific category of supervisor being considered and the degree of precision of the tasks being prescribed.

SUPERVISOR’S JOB DESCRIPTION

Example 1. Assistant Basic Education Officer ( Uttar Pradesh )

The official job description contains 31 items – 15 administrative and 16 pedagogical. The selection of responsibilities mentioned hereafter illustrates the wide diversity of tasks, their heavy administrative bias and the problematic distinction between pedagogic and administrative functions.

SUPERVISOR’S JOB DESCRIPTION

2. School Supervisor 1 (Trinidad and Tobago)Examples of tasks in the official job specification of School Supervisor 1, who is responsible for about 16 – 20 primary schools.

SUPERVISOR’S JOB DESCRIPTION

3. Primary School Inspector ( Tanzania )

The PSI is the main field inspector. It is his or her duty to work with colleagues in inspecting schools on a regular basis.

SUPERVISOR’S JOB DESCRIPTION• The variation between these three job description is

supervisors in Trinidad, for instance, have less purely administrative duties among their official tasks than their colleagues in Uttar Pradesh.

• The same tasks among the three job description are :a. an overload of responsibilities;b. dispersion of tasks; andc. inclusion of activities that bear little

relationship to the core functions of a supervisor.

SUPERVISOR’S JOB DESCRIPTION

Key words reflect the core functions of the supervisor ;

a. To control – inspect, supervise, evaluate and assess

b. To support and advisec. To report, to prepare administrative

documents and to participate in meetings.

CORE FUNCTIONS OF THE SUPERVISORS

Generally, supervision staf are expected to play three different yet complementary roles, which are quite evident in the job descriptions :

a. To control and evaluateb. To give support and advice, andc. To act as a liasion agent.

TO CONTROL AND EVALUATE

• To control is considered to be the essential function of supervisors by central ministry.

• The control function covers pedagogicals well as administrative inputs and processes.

• Traditionally, control of the teaching staff – the human resource input – received top priority.

TO SUPPORT AND GIVE ADVICE

• Simple control without support will not easily lead to quality improvement.

• In most instances, support takes the form of advice given to teachers and headteachers during supervision visits, which cover both administrative and pedagogical issues.

• Other modalities of support – individual tutoring; demonstration lessons; in-service training programmes; and organization of peer-learning.

TO ACT AS A LIASION AGENT• Supervisors are the main liaison agents between the top of

the education system, where norms and rules are set, and the schools, where education really takes place.

• To inform schools of decisions taken by the centre, and to inform the centre of the realities at school level.

• Supervisors are entrusted with horizontal relations and have a privileged role to play in identifying and spreading new ideas and good practices between schools.

• When ambitious reform programs are being launched, their role in disseminating the reform and in ensuring smooth implementation at the school level becomes important.

EXTRA ROLE OF SUPERVISORS

• As if their job description was not sufficiently complex, supervisors must also establish good linkages with other services involved in quality development such as pre- and in-service teacher training, curriculum development, preparation of national tests and examinations.

MAIN ROLE CONFLICTS

• Tension between administrative and pedagogic duties.

• Tension between control and support.• Tension between standardized procedures and

need for tailor-made services.

What supervisors are doing : some evidence from research

A. Distribution of time between tasks – Uttar Pradesh, India

Supervisings building and constructionSupervisings building and construction 30.330.3Collection of informationCollection of information 28.628.6MeetingsMeetings 11.711.7Academic supervisionAcademic supervision 8.78.7Departmental workDepartmental work 7.17.1Others*Others* 4.74.7Midday meal distributionMidday meal distribution 3.33.3Distribution of scholarshipsDistribution of scholarships 2.12.1Co-curricular activitiesCo-curricular activities 1.81.8Plan preparationPlan preparation 1.71.7

* Census operation, election duties and social work.

What supervisors are doing : some evidence from research

B. The views of the supervisors• Excessive workload. • Responsible for too many teachers or schools. • Too many different tasks. • Spend little time on classroom observation; their

attitude is more evaluative than supportive. • Their work is more disciplinary than developmental –

they would like to get more involved in teacher support and advice.

What supervisors are doing : some evidence from research

C. The views of the teachers• They feel that supervision work should be more

developmental and less control-oriented.• They feel that some supervisors are authoritarian,

faultfinding and bureaucratic and moreover, biased, subjective and arbitrary.

• Irregular and bad planning of visits, not enough time spent in the classroom and at times, irrelevant advice.

What supervisors are doing : some evidence from research

In Chile, what teachers consider to be a good supervisor :• Somebody who helps, assists and indicates possible errors

without waiting for them to occur in order to be able to sanction them;

• Somebody who does not impose, but who respects the specificity of the school and iswilling to listen;

• Somebody who knows how to guide, with good human relations and empathy;

• Somebody who concentrates on the daily school processes in a systematic and integrated way;

• Somebody who develops support networks;• Somebody who takes into account the khow-how of the

teacher and stimulates his/her professional development

NEW TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS

A. Towards a more coherent job description- Separating control and support roles.- De-linking administrative and pedagogical tasks.- Simplifying is not simple

NEW TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS

B. Focus on school rather than on teachers.- It requires a global approach directed towards the school as a whole, involving the relations between the teaching staff and between the school and the community, and paying full attention to the contextualfactors.- School-focused supervision requires teamwork and therefore important changes in the traditional behaviour and work habits of the supervisors.- Implies the acquisition of new technical skills since fullschool inspection covers all different dimensions of school functioning including financing and relations with parent and community.

NEW TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS

C. Increasing role of supervision in system evaluation- System monitoring needs to be more comprehensive and should involve different criteria that have to do with aspects of equality and justice, international comparability and definition of national norms and standards.- Monitoring system should not only focus on the individual teacher and school but also on the system, and supervisors have an important role to play in this respect.

NEW TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS

D. Towards more openness and transparency- Procedures must be more openness and transparent- There is more openness and discussions with those being appraised, i.e. school staff.- Inspectors can no longer base their assessment on only one lesson and walk away after the class visit.- Making full reports of full school inspections available to the clients of the education system.

REFERENCE1.JNS web site2.UNESCO, 2007. Reforming School Supervision

for Quality Improvement. IIEP, Unesco. Paris