Support supervision and teacher performance in government-aided primary schools in Teso sub-region, Uganda

Abstract

To improve the performance of primary school teachers in Uganda, support supervision was adopted as a key strategy for achieving this goal. Despite this move, teachers in the Teso Sub-region are not meeting their performance expectations in lesson preparation, learner engagement and assessment. This study examined the relationship between support supervision and teacher performance in government-aided primary schools in the Teso sub-region, Uganda. Informed by the general systems and path-goals theory, the study specifically sought to determine teacher performance, establish the status of support supervision, and find out the relationship between democratic, directive, and non-directive support supervision approaches and teacher performance in government-aided primary schools in the Teso Sub-region. A concurrent triangulation design was used. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect data from 359 respondents, selected from 367 out of 1008 government-aided primary schools in the Teso Sub-region. Qualitative data was obtained using semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary analysis, while quantitative data was collected using questionnaires. The respondents included classroom teachers, headteachers, DEOs, DISs and CCTs. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis, while qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. The findings from the study showed that the performance of teachers in government-aided primary schools in the Teso Sub-region was just satisfactory. Teachers invested some time, physical, and mental energy into their key job tasks. They, however, had little time to prepare for their teaching, did not always organise their classroom into a positive learning environment, and had a challenge tracking individual pupils’ learning progress. Support supervision aspects of dialogue, team promotion, reflection and task-oriented guidance were done and contributed to about 46.3% of the work performance of teachers. Generally, support supervision was taken as a formality and perceived as a monitoring and standards enforcement activity rather than being a professional development practice. Its frequency, therefore, was still minimal. It was concluded that professional development, rather than a compliance perspective to support supervision, would produce better results in teacher performance among primary school teachers in the Teso Sub-region. It is recommended that officers who carry out support supervision in Uganda, including MoES, DEOs, DISs and HTs focus more on mentoring, competence and professional development to enhance teacher performance in government-aided primary schools in Uganda. The Ministry of Education and Sports should do regular monitoring and effect fund operational costs of support supervision to allow district education departments perform their roles more effectively and efficiently. Further studies can be done on the relationship between support supervision and the professional development of teachers in Uganda and the education system.