The Role Of Educational Inspectors In Curriculum Implementation In Public Secondary Schools: A Case Of Bauchi State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The study sought to investigate the role of education inspectors in curriculum implementation in public secondary schools of Bauchi State, Nigeria. The main aim of the study was to establish the extent to which school inspectors‟ role has effective contribution towards curriculum implementation in Bauchi State secondary schools and to give insight into how it might be organized to influence teachers‟ work performance. The study had three main objectives namely: to establish the inspectors‟ professional preparedness; to determine the extent to which inspection-teacher relationship influences implementation of curriculum; and to find out how best school inspections should be carried out so as to have effective curriculum implementation. The study was based on Fullan‟s curriculum implementation model. Fullan‟s model identifies six themes which are necessary for successful implementation of a curriculum. These themes are: vision building, initiative taking and empowering/staff development, resource provision, restructuring, monitoring, problem-solving, and planning. The study was essentially qualitative with some aspects of quantitative approach. Simple random sampling was used to select 113 teachers from public secondary schools, and purposive sampling was used to select five school inspectors. In the same vein, systematic random sampling was also used to select 20 secondary school principals from Bauchi State. Therefore, the sample was 20 schools, 20 principals, five school inspectors, and 113 teachers. A Questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents, and data collected were subjected to the statistical package for social sciences to generate descriptive statistics; thematic analysis for the qualitative and quantitative analysis. The study found that school inspectors offered professional support to teachers and principals, and thus teachers benefitted from their support. However school inspectors faced some challenges that made it very difficult for them to discharge their responsibilities effectively. These challenges included limited time for inspection, inadequate training, and inadequate support from the state Government. The study recommends that the challenges facing the school inspectors should be addressed. The study also recommends that the existing school inspectors should be reinforced by giving them opportunity to participate in training, conferences, workshops and seminars. The study further recommends that school inspectors should develop positive attitude towards school inspections and more time should be allocated for school inspection so that proper feedback would be established, school inspectors reports should also be implemented.