School-Based Instructional Supervision and Teacher Performance in Selected Public Secondary Schools of Nyamagabe District, Rwanda

CHAPTER ONE THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE Background of the Study School-based instructional supervision emerges from the early nineteenth century in Britain and has been a principal means for improving the quality of school systems. Many researchers advocate that school-based instructional supervision and support is indispensable for improving the quality of education (Argyris, 1993). It became a systems’ tool for monitoring by school principals and government inspectors of schools in Britain and was extended to many parts of the world via the British Empire. It was based on a top-down control model that used rules, regulations, acts and codes. Inevitably, States inherited this model thereby using school-based instructional supervision for assessing the academic performances of schools and the effectiveness of teaching processes (Wood 1854). At independence and after, school-based instructional supervision remained the main instrument used supervising for facilitating and ensuring quality improvement in schools. In some countries, however, the supervisory model was set against the worldwide context. In India, for instance, it has not reflected international trends and progressive thinking. For example, in the last decade international concern about school outcomes and qu~lity has been given particular attention and diverse systems and models have evolved as a result (Chapman, Mahlck, and Smulders, 1997). Individual governments have sought their own paths forward but a pattern has emerged, Noord (2003) quoted an International Institute for Educational Planning study that indicated that commonly felt needs to restructure the supervision of schools had led to differential responses on the part of developed and developing countries.