CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the Study

According to Segun (2004), the importance of school supervision in today’s educational system demands far greater attention. People are becoming more conscious now than in the past about the importance of education in general and thus have generated interest in the daily operation of the school system in particular. Enlightened parents are now more curious to know the functions of the supervisors in our educational system and thus they ask questions from educators in order to satisfy their curiosity. They have been asking intriguing questions such as: What is the cause of the falling standard in our education? What are the functions of the school? Who are the supervisors? What do they do? Why do we supervise? Whose instructions should the teachers follow? What hope is there in future for the school system?

A supervisor is defined by the Britannica edition of the Oxford Dictionary as: “one who supervises”. “A person who exercises general direction or control over a business; a body of workmen etc. One who inspects and directs the work of others.” Good’s dictionary of education also defines supervision as all efforts of designated school officials towards providing leadership to all the teachers and other educational works in the improvement of instruction. It also involves the stimulation of professional growth and development of teachers; a selection and revision of educational objectives; materials of instruction, methods of teaching; and the evaluation of instruction. Another group of people may perceive supervision as a way of advising; guiding; refreshing, encouraging; stimulation; improving; and over-seeing certain groups with the hope of seeking their cooperation in order for the supervisors to be successful in their tasks of supervision (Dodd, 2008). Others may view supervision as a way of persuading people to desist from applying wrong procedures in carrying out certain functions on their jobs, and at the same time try to emphasize the importance of good human relations in an organization. The Ministry of Education, the Schools Board Members and Parents Teachers Association may strongly believe in efficiency and effectiveness as necessary ingredients for good supervision. Teachers working under these bodies may perceive supervision as the enforcement of protocol. Whereas, to ordinary people supervision may be the only way of knowing the efficiency and efforts of their schools in providing what the people believe a school should provide. Supervision functions within two contexts; one concerns people and the other concerns improvement of the school programme. The mediator between the people and programme is thus known as the supervisor, and he designs various methods in performing his functions in order to achieve the educational objectives of the institutions under his control.

Supervision right from time immemorial has to improve the activities of teaching and learning in primary schools, during the colonial era, supervision provide the basis for high efficiency for primary schools which was accredited to regular and meaningful supervision in primary schools by inspectors. Primary schools being the foundation of learning and instruction is in dire need of supervision throughout the school year, no wonder people are saying of poor academic efficiency of people nowadays the poor academic efficiency may be attributed to lack of effective supervision of primary school. Supervision should be intensified in primary school because the pupils are I the formative years. Today a larger number of primary school teachers are experienced and professional teaching jobs, they are not on the teaching job, but do not perform up to expectation even though they posses higher teaching qualifications these marked informative for regular supervision so as to put them right not to make mistake in discharging their duties of teaching the young ones and laying solid foundation for future higher learning. The new policy that the minimum learning qualification in primary schools. The Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) is a new development, hence most teachers in primary schools have obtained the Nigeria certificate in education (NCE) by now, but never perform to expectation in primary school teaching only few of the primary school teachers still hold the teacher grade II certificate in an attempt to promote efficiency in teaching and instruction in primary schools, so as to improve on the academic efficiency of the primary school pupils. It is also envisaged that if supervision is intensified in primary schools, teachers will have up to expectation in discharging their duties to the society (curricular activities).