Research consultancy

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

4.0 Introduction

The general objective of this study was to explore the teachers’ Perception of Instructional supervision in two selected Primary Schools in Bundibugyo District. This chapter deals with presentation and analysis of the data gathered from the respondents through interviews, observations and document analysis.  The chapter covers the following sections: demographic information of respondents, data collected on teachers perception of instructional supervision in relation to how they perceive supervision, how they use feedback and the challenges the teachers face while implementing feedback from supervision. The data from interviews, observations and document analysis are aggregated and summarized into themes developed from the information collected. In each section, the data is complemented by the qualitative information and actual quotations of the respondents.

4.1 Characteristics of Respondents

This section provides a descriptive overview of the demographic information of the teachers, school administrators and inspectors of schools who participated in this study. In summary, 20 teachers who were subjected to interviews, observation and document analysis, while the 4 school administrators and 3 Inspectors of schools answered the interview questions and their characteristics included: gender and years of service in that position. Accordingly 15 teachers were male as compared to 5 who were female, all the 4 School Administrators were males and equally all the 3 inspectors of schools were male. Regarding the years of service in the current position, most teachers (14) had served for 11-20 years, while 4 served for 6-10 years and only 2 were found to have served in the position for 1-5 years.

Meanwhile all the school administrators (4) had served in that position for a period of 11-20 years. Furthermore 2 of the 3 inspectors of schools had served in the current position for 11-20 and only 1 had worked for 6-10 years.

Table: Showing the composition of respondents

4.2 Context of the schools visited

School A

School A, is located in Harugale sub county, 20 kilometers from the district headquarters in a hard to reach area. It was started in 1932 by commander Collwell a missionary of Church of Uganda and currently has enrollment of 1500 pupils and18 teachers. The school has a wide bushy compound with three semi permanent buildings occupying 5 classes that is P.1 – P.5 then P.7 is in one permanent classroom block with two classes, head teachers’ office and a store. The permanent classrooms are barely with shelters whereby the goats sleep inside during the night, urinate and defecate inside and in the morning the pupils are supposed to clean. Majority of the pupils study under the trees since the enrolment is big and the classrooms are few. The school is the only one in the three parishes. These classrooms on the other hand are crowded with one teacher having a capacity of 150 pupils under his or her control, making it difficult for them to manage the class. The big enrolment in the school calls for more classrooms and seats for the pupils as this makes them sit on the floor, stones while studying under the big mango trees. The break time is almost one hour instead of the 30 minutes. The school has no provision for meals for teachers, pupils and any visitor in the school. Pupils finish the breaks playing football and other games while teachers sit under the trees. The semi permanent classrooms are full of dust that necessitates pupils of first sprinkle water before sweeping to reduce on the dust.

The pupils opt to come with polythene bags (Kavere) to use for sitting in the semi permanent classroom while those ones standing under the trees, use stones from the environment. Since they are found on mount Rwenzori the stones are readily available as chairs. The school has no teacher’s house and teachers are forced to travel long distances to reach the school, so the school is left to the hands of the community which does not even take care. The pupils and the teachers leave at 4:00pm and the community takes over the field in most cases the same pupils come back to play foot ball as well, while others bring their goats to graze in the school land, since that is the time the goats in the area are taken out for grazing.

The first day, I began my journey to the school at around 4:00am in order to reach the school at 7:30am and after moving for 10km I boarded of the car and jumped into a boda-boda motorcycle since the vehicle could not climb the steep road. After moving with the boda–boda for a distance of 8km, the cyclist asked me to come down since he could no longer move any further and that the road could not be accessed by his cycle. The only transport therefore was for me to walk for the remaining two kilometers (kms). However the two kms took me 2 hours to walk. Sweating and tired as I was after reaching the school at 7:30am I rested on the stone under the mango tree for 30 minutes. While resting my eyes were trying to move around to see whether any teacher, pupil was present in the school but in vein. However at 8:35am the first teacher appeared in the school while the pupil arrived shortly after ten minutes. The teacher said that, she was the teacher on duty as she welcomed me with fear that I was going to report them to the DEO’s office for coming to school late as the schools were supposed to open at 8:00am and as it was planted in their minds that, the arrival of an inspector of schools was synonymous to the roar of a lion. The headteacher, teachers and pupils fear the inspector. So to them they believed I had come very early to witch hunt them. To make her feel comfortable with my visit, I spoke to the teacher and informed her of the purpose of my visit to the school and this made her feel at home  and I only saw her making phone calls may be informing the headteacher and the rest of the staff members of my visit.

The teacher took me round the school as I waited for the headteacher to arrive. At around 10:00am he was seen in the school field. During break time after having a conversation with headteacher, I met the whole staff, gave a speech and told them the purpose of my visit to the school. I shared with them my schedule and asked for their oral consent to volunteer in my research interviews and observations when time comes which they welcomed.

After the meeting I held a face to face interview with the headteacher and later his deputy. So I had to leave to go and make arrangements to meet the headteacher of school B who was waiting for me in the office of the District Education Officer (DEO).

So far very good – edit to leave only information about the school and its teachers.  .

The second day began normally, I woke up prepared for the great trek to the school on my way it rained and this hardened the journey because the road was so slippery, that I could not walk without support, lucky enough I got a good samaritan who had brought his merchandise to the lower market and as he was going back home, he helped me and held on to my hands as we where sliding till we reached the school. So I reached the school at around 10.00am and held interviews with three teachers only to be told that, the school was closing because a parent with 7 children who was a prominent man in the area passed on and as the Muslim culture holds that, the deceased must be buried immediately. So the headteacher asked a pupil to ring the bell and assembled all the children and teachers, addressed them and told them of the sad news. I saw some children and teachers very excited to go back home.

However I joined the rest of the school to pay tribute to the bereaved family as a gesture of love to the pupils, the school and the community at large. Little did I know that my presence in the burial meant a lot to the community, I was only suppressed when I was recognize several times by every speaker including the LCV counselor of the area. Not only being recognized I was also requested to give a speech and greet the mourners. This I was challenged to give 100.000 (one hundred thousand shillings) from my pocket as condolence to help the family to an a pulse from the mourners who thanked me for the love I showed to their family, school and the community at large. Atleast every day I visited the school there were more than three teachers who were absent for reasons known to them, every 15^th -16^th and 30^th of every month pupils and teachers who have cocoa remain at home to harvest, as it is the culture in the district leaving some classes un attended to or with one teacher and every market day pupils first help their parents to carry merchandise and babies to the market and later come to school or not.

However I had to leave due to fear of the threatening rain which was coming, so I did not have lunch with them I asked them to excuse me.

The third day was very interesting for me, since I had made friends with both the pupils, teachers and community around. As usual I came to school and arrived at 8:50am and got the teacher on duty who welcomed me and since I had `made some phone calls to the headteacher. I received teachers readily waiting for me to interview them. The choice was mine at leisure, I interviewed 5 (five) teachers and later sloped down at around 5:20 pm. However reaching down there was no motorcycle necessitating me to walk another eight kilometers to the main road. While at school I stayed without any food since the school had no provision for lunch and there was no nearby centre for one to buy some food.

The fourth day of my research I went back to the school and held pre -observation conference with the teachers that I wanted to observe and agreed with them on the days for observation however many teachers where in favours of postponing the observation giving a lot of excuses, that they were busy with a lot of work load and some were preparing pupils for football competitions which were due. This made me feel that the teachers were not prepared for teaching and the second week as agreed I came for observation whereby, I observed lessons in progress, held post observation conference with the teachers observed and asked for the previous seed back forms of the previous supervision, of which majority of the teachers did not have them, however two of the teachers had them.    In this section, describe the school and the participants. In chapter three, give us an account of each day and the challenges.

School B

School B is located within Bukonzo Sub County approximately 10 kilometers away from the district headquarters. It was founded by the Catholic Mill Hill fathers in 1912 and has an enrollment of 1203 pupils with 26 teachers.

On my arrival to the school I was received by a pupil of primary seven who welcomed me and gave me a chair. He informed me that the teachers were about to arrive but it was his duty to open and close the school as an office prefect. This situation was the opposite of school A were by I was the first to arrive and leave the school.

The school is blessed with abundant water supply, three pit latrines one for boys, girls and teachers respectively.

It has a well organized talking compound made of stones which first welcomes you, recently it received a donation of two classroom blocks from Save the Children Uganda an organization that works in the area. Save the Children did not only construct two classroom blocks but also an office for the head teacher and a twin teachers’ house that houses 6 teachers.

However despite this good classrooms and teachers houses most of the teachers prefer coming from home to school instead of staying in the semi permanent teachers’ houses constructed by the PTA. To reach this school the available transport is a motor cycle and at a certain point one has to walk on foot climbing or at least one hour before reaching the school.

The Headteachers office was well organized with a sofa set and coffee set for the visitors to sit. He had files for every teacher and it made it easy for one to look for previous documents of supervision for analysis.

The school had at least organized the parents to provide the pupils with porridge for lunch and the teachers contributed towards their own lunch. The time keeper in the school strictly followed the time as no time seemed to be wasted in this rural school, which was quite amazing.

Atleast every day I visited the school there was more than one teacher who was absent for reasons known and the headteacher to them, every 15^th -16^th and 30^th of every month pupils and teachers who have cocoa remain at home to harvest as it is the culture in the district and every market day pupils first help their parents to carry merchandise and babies to the market and later come to school or not.

After interacting with the pupil and teachers, the headteacher arrived shortly. The headteacher called for a brief meeting with the staff where he introduced me to the teachers as a researcher not an inspector of schools. He them requested me to greet the staff members.

I stood and talked to the teachers about the purpose of my visit to the school and asked for their cooperation, oval consent during the course of the study. I promised them that the information I was gathering was for research purpose and that it would not be used for any other person against them which they consented.

I also had a post observation conference that day to prepare the teachers of the week for actual observation to come. After the meeting I interviewed the headteacher and his deputy headteacher who were all present in the school.

During break time, I had break which was prepared by one teacher who stays in the school quarters as gesture of good hospitality. After break I also embarked on interviewing the teachers who were not busy teaching in the school actually that day, I interviewed for teachers and then I left the school to go home. Sloping down is always easy one can even decide to run and reach down shortly. However climbing is a challenge.

The second day I started the journey a little bit late since I had to interview one inspector of schools. So I arrived in the school at around 1:00pm and got that after lunch, the pupils were attending to a debate, so I decided to participate in the debate to the amusement of the pupils and teachers who never expected a person like me to do so. After the debate I requested one teacher who stays around the school to give me a chance to interview her since it was games time which she obliged. Immediately after the interview I left for home.

Third day I woke up at around 6:00am and started my journey as usual and when I was about to reach the school, came a big down pour, so I had to take shelter under a tree since the nearest home was like 500m down the slope. Thank God the rains subsided, and then I got on to the slippery road, walked the remaining 1km to the school.

So I reached the school wet and borrowed an exercise book to record the interviews from the teachers, interviewed 3 teachers and observed two lessons in progress.

The forth day I reached the school at around 8:30am and held interviews with one teacher observed 3 teachers teaching.

The week I collected data from the previous supervisions that the head teachers and other inspectors of school had given as feedback, unfortunately the data was not big enough since many teachers claimed that the supervisions were not giving them feedback after supervision.

Both schools were government aided (Grade II status) and receive their sole support from government under the UPE programme with PTA and SMC as their governing bodies. These schools were designated as model schools (Bundibugyo district Roadmap, 2014) and were provided with all the necessary support ranging from experienced teachers, scholastic materials, good sanitation and instructional supervision among others to improve on the performance of both teachers and pupils.

Very good. I now feel your field work. As said above, please edit and leave your first impressions of the school and its teachers. The rest of the information will be used in other parts of the dissertations.

4.3 Presentation and Analysis of the Study Findings

This section is devoted to the presentation, analysis and discussion of findings obtained from various groups of respondents in relation to teachers’ perception of instructional supervision in the two selected primary schools in Bundibugyo District.  The data obtained from interviews, document analysis and observations were coded and analysed thematically.

4.3.1 Perception of teachers towards instructional supervision

This section discusses teachers’ perceptions of instructional supervision and the results of the interviews, post observation conference and document analyses are presented in three themes below;

4.3.1.1 Improvement of instruction.

Instructional supervision focuses upon the improvement of instruction, for it is concerned with the continuous redefinition of goals, with the wider realization of the human dynamic for improvement of teaching and learning. Thus instructional supervision is a consciously planned programme for the improvement and consolidation of instruction.

The results indicated that, teachers considered instructional supervision as a tool for the improvement of instruction in their classrooms and this was confirmed by the testimonies below:

“Instructional supervision can improve on my instructional methods and I can adopt new instructional methods to meet students’ needs if it is done objectively” (T2B)

“I hold the view that instructional supervision helps the school to assess the most urgent needs that can improve on teaching, if done correctly” (T8A)

“The primary purpose of instructional supervision is to improve on instruction and offer guidance to the teacher so that he or she can be competent in self analysis, self criticism and self improvement”(T5B)

“In my teaching career, instructional supervision has provided me with an opportunity to gain information about a wide range of teaching skills” (T7B)

The school administrators similarly contended with the teachers that, instructional supervision was for improvement of instruction as expressed below:

“Instructional supervision helps to identify weak and strong areas of a teacher hence improving on instruction” (A4B)

           “The classroom instruction in this school has improved as a result of instructional supervision” (A4A)

“In my view, the purpose of instructional supervision is to focus on teachers teaching skills and in turn improve students’ academic performance” (A2B)

Additionally an Inspector of schools intimated in an interview that;

“To the best of my knowledge, instructional supervision clarifies school goals, improves the value of teachers and ensures good quality teaching and learning” (I2)

Regarding the above, the teachers seemed to say that instructional supervision could only improve on instruction if it was carried out for the right purpose implying that it was not currently done objectively.

4.3.1.2 Professional development

Staff development of teachers means that provisions should be made by the headteacher to improve the performance of teachers from initial employment to retirement. Staff development therefore becomes a means to an end, the end being the improvement of the quality of student’s learning experience. Teachers are part of dynamic profession and must keep abreast with the new methods of instruction and identification of these needs can only be done through instructional supervision. The results from the study signified that instructional supervision developed teachers’ skills in teaching in the use of modern visual aids, modern methods of teaching and aimed at increasing the teacher’s contribution to the development of the educational objectives of the school. This was explained by the teachers that;

“When the supervisors are not subjective and guide us during instructional supervision, it helps to reflect on our practices and learn more about what to do, which enhances our professionalism” (T9B)

“Instructional supervision would help us teachers to improve on our knowledge, teaching skills and the ability to make informed professional decisions if its intentions were good” (T1B)

“The instructional supervisors help us teachers to grow our teaching skills which leads to better teaching performance and greater student learning” (T9A)

“To me as a teacher, instructional supervision provides me with an opportunity and resources needed to reflect on my practices if it is purposeful” (T6A)

These findings were further expressed by the school administrators that, instructional supervision helped to develop the teacher professionally as shared below:

I have noticed a lot of professional development in my teachers ever since we started instructional supervision, because they are now able to make their own decisions regarding their knowledge and skills improvement” (A3A)

“I hold the opinion that instructional supervision helps teachers in this school to align their work with the school objectives and to set before them goals within their reach”(A3B)

“Supervision has helped us identify the needs of teachers for further training” (A1A)

In the same light inspectors of schools agreed with the teachers as elaborated below:

“Supervision is a tool for identification of teacher talents and needs for training” (I3)

“Prevention is better than cure; thus instructional supervision helps teachers meet situations successfully before they actually arise. So they must plan their activities in time in order to be professional” (I1)

According to the results above the teachers mainly were pushing to the fact that instructional supervision, if done objectively could promote professional development .Therefore if teachers did not have the skills, attitudes and knowledge essential for the accomplishment of the schools goals, then the school was not successful. Thus instructional supervision for identification of teachers’ needs, abilities and talents in consideration to staff for promotion should be continuous process which should lead to better teaching and learning

4.3.1.3 Fault finding mission

Fault finding mission was when the supervisor came into the classroom to supervise the teacher without any prior notice of his or her intentions. There was no communication given to the teacher to that effect and so he/she was taken unaware. The supervisor was always subjective in his/her  judgement against the teacher feeling that his/her reasons were correct and no need of consulting with the teacher and after supervision the supervisor kept the report for reasons best known to him/her.

On this note majority of the teachers interacted with believed that instructional supervision was for reprimand not for appraisal as indicated in the comments of the teachers below:

“The supervisor comes in the classroom with prior knowledge of the teacher’s weakness like absenteeism, then he/she starts to check on the pupils books to see the dates when the teacher has been present and whether she has been making pupil’s work, without interacting with the teacher and after the exercise he makes a report” (T2A)

“Personally I was transferred after the headteacher tipped the inspector of schools to come for instructional supervision, saying that I am always not regular in school, for some reasons. So as punishment I was brought this far” (T3B)

“The headteacher after having a misunderstanding with the teacher may decide to use supervision as a tool for coming up with a report for reprimanding the teacher” (T6B)

“In most times, we as teachers perceive supervisors as people who control our destiny because whatever they take can either be used to promote us or not”.(T4A)

The teachers further felt that instructional supervision was for a fault finding than support to the teacher. The following quotations provided an insight into how the teachers felt about the issue.

“Supervisors only try to find faults in the classroom teaching and never tell us our strength” (T1A).

“The supervisor comes into the classroom without any prior notice and instead of guiding me on the new methods of scheming and lesson planning, he or she only blames me for teaching without the scheme of work and lesson plan” (T1B).

“The Headteacher after reporting you to the supervisor sends him to come and supervise you with the intention of finding you in the wrong” (T7A) 

“After the supervisor has done his work, he leaves you without any written report on his findings during the lesson and only makes a confidential report to the authorities”(T8B)

“The supervisor only examines specific areas where I am weak, and doesn’t give me any support, so I feel he is after something else” (T5A)

“I feel insulted when the Headteacher claims to find my shortcomings before students and tells me openly to improve on those shortcomings without involving himself towards improvement” (T3A)

“Frankly speaking supervisors use supervision as a tool to control teachers’ pedagogical activities. They simply visit the classroom, sometimes without notice and leave with negative criticism” (T4B)

The supervisor that’s the inspectors and school administrators substantiated the fears of the teachers as showed below:

“Most of the times teachers think we supervise them to find faults in their work, even when we are trying to support them” (A2B)

“We have time and again reminded teachers to be prepared for their lessons and conduct the classroom in an orderly way, but to our surprise, they always think we have gone to find fault in their teaching” (A1A)

“In some instances, we go out to supervise teachers especially when we have gotten reports from Headteachers that we need to confirm” (I3)

 “Most teachers think we have gone to find fault with them, simply because they are lazy in preparing for teaching” (I2)

Based on the results above, teachers seemed to be confused of the purpose of instructional supervision and that’s why some of them felt that, it was a fault finding mission since the supervisors did not give prior notice and feedback of their findings and the Headteachers wrote confidential reports to the inspectors of schools who then came to supervise teachers after a tip in order to find teachers weakness so as to  reprimand them, as pointed out by one teacher who had this to say: The supervisor only examines specific areas where I am weak, and doesn’t give me any support, so I feel he is after something else. Such comments leave the teacher with no option but to think and perceive that instructional supervision was for fault finding.

During the document analysis the comments given by the supervisors to the teachers were more of negative than positive hence not helping the teachers to improve and always negative comments discouraged teachers to work hard and sent a signal to them like they were witch hunted and this left them with no option but think that instructional supervision was for fault finding instead of supporting them to improve on their teaching and learning skills.

Furthermore during the pre-observation conference the teachers interacted with appreciated having a meeting with the supervisor before the actual observation and were ready to be supervised as reflected by T3A who stressed that:

“I am very happy to hear this, you are the first supervisor to inform us about your impending visit and agree with us on the due date, purpose and objectives of the visit. This is a blessing in disguise, it will go a long way in improving our teaching skills and I promise that you will get me prepared for the visit on the agreed date”

On the contrary, majority of the teachers interacted with during the pre-observation conference were not cooperative and were in favour of postponing the actual observation exercise giving excuses of not being ready as shown below:

“The rest of this term, will be busy preparing pupils for music dance and drama, ball games competitions, as such we may not have enough time to attend to you I would propose that we do it next term since I may not have time to prepare” (T1B)

“Madam I teach in P.1 and we are only two teachers in the class of 197pupils yet we are supposed to, assess every competence of individual learners. So I may not have enough time to attend to you” (T4B)

In addition to the above my observation pointed to the fact that the teachers were not well prepared for instructional supervision, not given enough support in form of refresher courses to help them keep abreast with the new methods as cited by a teacher in a post- observation conference below:

“I have taught for more than twenty years and new things are coming up for instance in our years we used objectives instead of competencies, the supervisor instead of guiding me on the new methods of scheming and lesson planning, only blames me for not having a teaching scheme” (T1A)

In a nutshell, if the purpose of instructional supervision was not clear, teachers were not given feedback and not rendered support that could help them improve on instruction and if instructional supervision was not done correctly, then it moved towards fault finding and did not meet what it was supposed to in improving instruction.

I like what you’ve done. Keep it up.