CAPACITY BUILDING NEEDS OF PRINCIPALS FOR EFFECTIVE SUPERVISION OF INSTRUCTION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLSINSOUTH EAST NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

The study determined the capacity building needs of principals for effective supervision of instruction in secondary schools in South East Nigeria. The study specifically, identified the competencies required by principals for supervision of instruction and the capacity building needs of principals for supervision of planned, organized, implemented and evaluation of instruction in secondary schools in South East Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Five research questions and four null hypotheses guided the study. The population for the study was 2,603 consisting of 1,305 principals and 1,298 vice principals (academics) from 1,305 secondary schools in five states of South East Nigeria. Stratified simple random sampling technique was adopted in selecting 260 (10% of the population) as sample for the study. Structured questionnaires consisting of 82 items were used for data collection. The items of the questionnaire were assigned four response options of Highly Required/Performed (HR/HP=4), Averagely Required/Performed (AR/AP=3), Slightly Required/Performed (SR/SP=2) and Not Required/Performed (NR/NP=1). The questionnaireswere face validated by three experts. The reliability of the questionnaires was established using Cronbach Alpha and coefficient indices of 0.87 and 0.91 were obtained. Out of the 260 copies of the questionnaire administered 246 copies were retrieved and utilized for analysis representing 97% retrieval rate. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the principals underperformed some of the required competencies for the supervision of instruction in secondary schools. Findings further revealed the need gap in the underperformed competencies indicated that the principals need capacity building, specially, in determining the major goals to be achieved by teachers in planned instruction; determining class groupings in supervision of organized instruction; checking teachers’ ability to deliver content by teachers; finding students areas of weaknesses and motivating students to enhance teachers’ interaction with them in supervision on evaluation of instruction, among others. It was recommended among others that the state governments in the five states should organize seminars/workshops for principals in order to build their capacity in the identified competencies of need. Principals should make themselves available for the retraining.