ABSTRACT
The origin of supervision goes back to the year 1910 when a director of education was appointed for the Kenyan protectorate. The director had legal duties of organizing, supervision and inspection of protectorate schools. In 1964, the Ominde commission recommended careful selection of education supervisors. In 2002, school inspectorate department changed to quality assurance and standards and principals of schools were also empowered to do instruction supervision in their schools. This study assessed the effects of school based instructional on teacher performance. The objectives of this study were to identify supervisory practices used by principals in secondary schools, look at ways in which supervisory practices have impacted on teacher performance, find out the principals role in ensuring that teachers teach effectively and evaluate students as well as look at issues and challenges faced by principals in instructional supervision. The researcher used survey design in collecting information on principals and teachers. The study targeted all the 164 principals and 3281 teachers from all the 164 secondary schools in the 4 divisions of Mombasa District. Stratified sampling was used to choose the number of boys and girls secondary school whereas simple random sampling was used to select teachers for the study. Purposive sampling was used to select schools based on schools that record a drop in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). Data was collected by use of questionnaires for head teachers, heads of departments and teachers. Prior to the actual data collection procedure a pilot study was conducted in two schools to pre-test the research instruments. Reliability of the instruments was established using the split-half technique and the spearman Rank Order correlation technique so as to determine the correlation coefficient. Data was obtained and analyzed by use of statistical package for social sciences. The findings were presented using frequencies, percentages, tables, graphs and pie-charts. The study established that the supervisory practices used by principals in secondary schools included: ensuring setting and administration of CATs and examinations and planning of important school events like academic clinics, prizegiving days. The study also established that the teachers felt that the instructional supervision practices employed by their principals were ineffective, though there were some which bore fruits. It was revealed that the supervisory practices that were effective had a positive impact on teachers‟ performance in relation to teaching. However, the teachers complained that the supervisory practices did not help them to grow and develop professionally. The study also established that the challenges faced by headteachers as instructional supervisors included inadequate resources due to lack of enough funds to purchase them. The study recommends that school principals should put a lot of emphasis on instructional supervision in order to establish a trend of being in command with what the teachers are doing in class; the school principals should always give teachers feedback from the supervision in order to help teachers know their weaknesses and also to polish up on their strengths in teaching; among other recommendations. The study recommends that a similar study to be carried out in a poor developed area and compare the result findings.
