Factors Influencing Head Teachers’ Instructional Supervision Practices In Public Primary Schools In Kinango Sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors influencing head teachers’ instructional supervision practices in public primary schools in Kinango Sub-County, Kenya. The study objectives sought to determine the influence of head teachers’ teaching workload,administrative experience,head teachers’ qualification and inservice training on instructional supervision practices in public primary schools in Kinango Sub-County,Kenya.The study employed descriptive survey design.The target population for the study all the 130 public primary schools head teachers 1400 teachers in Kinango Sub-County.The sample size was 313 respondents consisting of 33 head teachers and 280 teachers.Simple random sampling was used to select schools where respondents were picked purposefully.The research instruments were self constructed questionnaires administred to head teachers and teachers.A test re-test technique was used to estimate the degree to which the same results could be obtained with repeated measure accuracy.A correlation of about 0.76 and 0.81 were obtained were obtained for head teachers and teachers respectively.After analsis data was presented using frequency tables.The study established that the highly experienced head teachers were more effective in instructional supervision as they posses rich knowledge,skills and attitude necessary for adequate performance of their supervision roles.The study also concludes that head teachers’ professional qualification is critical factor in instructional supervision.The study further concludes that inservie training affects instructional supervision greatly because of the techniques gained when one is working through insets as shown by 97 per cent of the respondents. The study recommends that the school administrators’ workload should be reduced so that they can address both their administrative duties and participate fully in their instructional supervisory roles.The government should ensure balancing of staffing in every school to avoid understaffing. The school administrators should be in-serviced and mainly on supervisory skills. This could be done through induction workshops for newly promoted head teachers so as to keep them cope with the challenging administrative and supervisory roles, simply because the primary school curriculum keeps on changing always. The school administrators should be in-serviced and mainly on supervisory skills