ABSTRACT.
This study examined the impact of commandants’ supervisory role performance on the management of prison schools in Nigeria. It’s aimed at examining the impact of commandants’ supervisory role performance on communication; to determine the impact of commandants’ supervisory role performance on the maintenance of school facilities in prison schools; commandants’ supervisory role performance on delegation of duties to staff in prison schools among others. To achieve the objectives of the study, descriptive survey research method was used and all the eight hypotheses were subjected to Pearson product moment correlation statistical analysis. The respondents for the studies are the commandants and directing staff/instructors of the schools under study. The population of study was 626. A sample of 120 was used for the study through stratified random sampling and simple descriptive survey techniques. Questionnaire was the only instrument for the study; content validity method was employed for the verification of the questionnaire. The data for the study was collected through visit to the sampled prison schools in Nigeria and was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics of the PPMCC at 0.05 level of significance; simple percentages, item means and standard deviation, and the results were presented in a tabular form. The study revealed that commandants’ strict supervision on staff enhanced effective lines of communication in prison schools; that commandants’ strict supervision of staff helped to improve the level of school facilities maintenance and utilization in prison schools; that commandants’ strict supervision of staff made delegation of responsibilities to staff very effective in prison schools among others. The researcher however among others recommended: that commandants should ensure that adequate and effective lines of communication be maintained at all times; discipline should be maintained by both staff and trainees diligently; that the maintenance of school facilities should be the priorities of both staff and trainees; that school should not exist in isolation of the community but should ensure harmonious co-existence for the development of the school among others and suggestions were also proffered for further studies.
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1: Background to the study
The supervisory role performances of the commandants in school setting are very imperative to the effective management of the prison schools. The concepts of supervision and management border on the perception of the leader about his roles in achieving the stated goals of the entire system. If any commandant performs a good supervisory role in the school system, he will achieve a positive result and thereby fulfill the goals of the institution. Management is a social process designed to ensure the co-operation, participation and intervention of others which deals directly with the process of planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing and controlling and the utilization of human and material resources in a particular system for the achievement of predetermined objectives (UNESCO, 1979 and Ogunnu, 2001). The idea of monitoring and reviewing the teaching and learning process makes management and supervision of institution very imperative in our educational institutions in order for these institutions to live up to expectation and to realize the objectives set before them. Though the roles of the commandants as instructional leader were widely advocated, they seldom practiced and that commandants spent most of their time dealing with managerial issues. The commandants‟ role is primarily that of a manager. Stronge (1998) calculated that school commandants spent 62.2% of their time on managerial issues and 11% on instructional leadership issues even after undergoing training or in-service for the role of instructional leader.
In a system, supervision implies the process of ensuring that policies, principles, rules, regulations and methods prescribed the use of expert knowledge and experience to oversee, evaluate and coordinate the process of improving teaching and learning in schools (Igwe 2001, Krochhar 2005 and Igbo 2002). Supervision is the instructional leadership that relates perspectives to behaviours, clarifies purposes, contributes to and support organizational actions, coordinates interactions, provides for maintenance and improvement of the instructional programmes and
assesses goals achievements. It is also the general leadership role and a coordinating role among all school activities concerned with learning (Kerry and Burke, 1989). Nwaogu (1980) viewed supervision as the process of helping, giving, advising and stimulating growth in a subordinate in order to improve on the quality of his work.
From the foregoing, it could easily be deduced that supervision is an indispensible variable in the teaching learning process, as well as the overall school and achievement of educational objectives. Supervision implies operating at close range by actually overseeing or controlling on the shop floor, dealing with situations on tile spot as they arise, whereas management implies controlling remotely by using other administrative means. Supervision and management naturally overlap in practice, partly from necessity, where managers show close personal interest in order to achieve cooperation, and partly due to lack of management training. Anything to the contrary means the failure of the programme of supervision.
Of all the major tasks of a school administrator, none is as sensitive and challenging as the one relating to the supervision of trainees, school personnel, instructional programmes, school plants and statutory records. Instructional supervision occupies a unique place in the entire education system and it becomes absolutely expedient to give it prominent attention. Nowadays, the parents and guardians are becoming more curious about the kind of education given to their children and wards. Quite often, they show their concern by demanding that the school should teach better than in the past. If quality education is to be given in schools and to improve the standard of education generally, then instructional supervision must be accorded high priority. In the school system, it is the responsibility of the school administrator to develop and maintain staff competence. In fact supervision according to National Policy on Education (FRN, 2004) was meant to ensure quality control through regular inspection and continuous monitoring of instructional and educational service. The commandant oversees the activities of both teaching and non-teaching staff in the prison school using various supervisory techniques ensuring that they
conform to the generally accepted principles of education. He also sees that high standards are maintained in the school in accordance with laid down rules and regulations.
The head of Nigeria secondary school is the principal, who is regarded as the chief executive and is responsible for all that happens in the school (Oyedeji and Fasasi, 2006). In the Nigeria Prison Service any head of prison school is called the Commandant (NPS, 1991). Obemeata (1984) and Titiloye (1997) saw the principal (commandant) as a manager, administrator, an exemplary leader, counselor, a public officer, a curriculum developer and a trainer, a nurse and even a messenger. Therefore, as a head, he is saddled with certain supervisory roles with which efficiently and effectively carried out help to improve the standards of the institution holistically. The main tasks of the commandants are interpreting policy, executing curriculum programmes, seeing to staff and trainees‟ discipline, physical facilities, staff development and finally maintaining school- community relations (Dare, 2009). He also delegates duties, involving staff in decision making, supervising instructional activities and development of appraisal system for quality management of the system.
Within the sphere of an organization, the supervisor (commandant) is to possess basic knowledge of supervision known as basic elements of supervision. The ability of a commandant to apply the right principles at the right time will improve his performance and supplement his technical knowledge. These basic elements of supervision are the creative ability of a commandant in building and maintaining efficient organization, controlling and creating an effective workforce within the sphere of an organization. The basic elements of supervision serve as an eye opener for the commandants to appreciate the significance of the organization structure by reorganizing the relationships within it, bearing on staff and their attitude towards work and controlling human and material resources for effective results (www.infotech25.yahoo.net)
Like the secular school, the head of the prison school is the commandant, the teaching staff are called the Directing staff, and the field officials are called the Instructors while the students or
course participants are referred to as the trainees (NPS, 1991). The supervisory roles/functions accrued to the principals of secondary schools are also applicable to the prison school commandants. Commandants of prison schools occupy unique positions and are the greatest factors in the success and failure of their schools. To buttress this, Mussazi (1988) in a paper presented at the conference of Nigeria Association of Educational Administration and planning (NAEAP) at Kaduna, submitted that school should not exist if the skills and knowledge of the heads (commandants) are in question. The organization, instruction and purpose of the school, reflect to a great extent, on the personality of the commandant. He is therefore expected to be exemplary to his staff and trainees. Perhaps the failure of prison schools for not achieving their mandate is assumed to be caused by the commandants.
1.2: Statement of the Problem
Supervision is a process which strives to stimulate others toward greater effectiveness or productivity. The functions of those engaged in supervision of instruction include supervising lessons to raise the standard of education, encouraging professional growth of teachers by giving advice and also organizing in-service-training for professional growth and development of teachers. The most crucial supervisory activities include giving direction and advice, control and stimulation of effort towards goals, observation to determine when correction or modification ought to be made in a programme within schools (Tijjani, 2007). Supervision is a sensitive job which demands a lot of time and energy in planning and implementation by the commandants. It is an extremely valuable tool for the commandants to use in improving instruction in prison schools. The commandants should not abdicate their supervisory responsibility by delegating the instructional supervision to a subordinate in the school. Knezevich (1975) remarked that "Curriculum is what the school is about. Every school administration at every level must keep in touch with what is being taught and how much is being learned".
Education was viewed by many societies as the only process of transmitting from one generation to another the values, knowledge, skills, wisdom and attitude. Institutions are places where these societal values, knowledge, skills and attitude can be learned. Therefore, these institutions need competent heads who can pilot the affairs, in order to achieve objectives. For the commandants to achieve the school objectives, he should apply his supervisory roles on certain administrative roles. The commandant in trying to have quality control and achieve the goals of the institution needs to supervise both staff and trainees in areas such as policy implementation, executing curriculum programme, staff/trainees‟ discipline, physical facilities, staff development, good channel of communication, and school-community relations (Dare, 2009). The commandants will improve their performance considerably by using the technique of each of the basic elements of supervision to supplement their technical knowledge. The ability to apply the right principle at the right time demands something more than knowledge alone. The three basic elements of supervision are: building and maintaining an efficient organization, creating and maintaining an effective workforce and controlling (www.infotech25.yahoo.net)This means that if any commandant performs these supervisory roles and elements in its proper context, he will certainly achieve success in his school.
On the contrary, the importance of effective supervision and management to an institution cannot be overemphasized and there is an increasing awareness of this importance as organizations are becoming larger and more complex in modern times. An institution may be well staffed in terms of qualifications, total population, and distribution of expertise among the organizational units, but without effective and efficient monitoring, money and human efforts expended on the organization would be a waste. For instance, in most prison schools the general organizational climate and the channels of communication are not properly monitored. A situation where commandants pay less attention to supervision of maintenance of school facilities, staff/trainees‟
discipline, staff development, delegation of duties, management of staffing and involvement of staff in decision making, institutional goals can hardly be achieved to the maximum.
From the trends of problems, the crux of the matter in the study is the impact of supervisory role performance of the commandants on the management of prison schools in Nigeria. The focus of this study can be postulated as “are the supervisory role performances of the commandants having any impact on the management of prison schools in meeting the yearning and objectives of prison schools in the study area?
1.3: Objectives of the study
The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of supervisory role performance of commandants on the management of prison schools in Nigeria. The specific objectives include to:
i. examine the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the organizational communication in prison schools.
ii. examine the impact of supervisory role performances of the commandants‟ on the maintenance of discipline in prison schools.
iii. determine the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the maintenance of school facilities.
iv. to examine the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the interpersonal relationship among staff in prison schools and school- community relations.
v. determine the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the staffing of prison schools.
vi. find out the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the delegation of duties in prison schools.
vii. examine the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on staff development in the prison schools.
viii. find out the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on decision making in the Nigerian prison schools.
1.4: Research Questions
The following research questions were generated to address the problems of the study:
i. Do commandants‟ supervisory role performances have any impact on the communication in the Nigeria prison schools?
ii. What is the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on management of discipline in prison schools?
iii. What is the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the maintenance of school facilities in prison schools?
iv. What is the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on interpersonal relationship among staff and schools-community relations in prison schools?
v. Do the commandants‟ supervisory role performances have any impact on the staffing of prison schools?
vi. What is the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the delegation of duties in prison schools?
vii. Do commandants‟ supervisory role performances have any impact on staff development in the Nigeria prisons schools?
viii. What is the impact of commandants; supervisory role performances on decision making in prison schools?
1.5: Research Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:
Ho1: There is no significant difference in the opinions of the commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on the organizational communication in prison schools.
Ho2: There is no significant difference in the opinions of the commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on management of discipline in prison schools.
Ho3: There is no significant difference in the opinions of commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on maintenance of school facilities in prison schools.
Ho4: There is no significant difference in the opinions of commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on staff/school-community relationship in prison schools.
Ho5: There is no significant difference in the opinions of commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on staffing in prison schools.
Ho6: There is no significant difference in the opinions of commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on delegation of duties in prison schools.
Ho7: There is no significant difference in the opinions of commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of Commandants‟ supervisory role performances on staff development in prison schools.
Ho8: There is no significant difference in the opinions of commandants and directing staff/ instructors on the impact of commandants‟ supervisory role performances on decision making in prison schools.
1.6: Basic assumptions
The following assumptions were made:
1. That a good communication is essential in the management of prison schools.
2. That proper staffing by the commandants is important in the management of prison schools.
3. That proper supervision on maintenance of school facilities helps in efficient and effective management of prison schools.
4. That effective monitoring of interpersonal relationship between the school and the community helps in the management of prison schools.
5. That delegation of duties is essential for easy coordination of activities in the prison schools.
6. That lack of proper supervision causes indiscipline in the prison schools.
.