Supervisory competencies required and possessed by secondary school principals

Thesis Abstract

This study investigated the supervisory competencies required and possessed by secondary school principals in North Central States, Nigeria, focusing on four(4) identified supervisory areas of instructional leadership, communication, information and communication technology and human relations. Descriptive survey design was used for the study. The population of the study comprised 2511 secondary school principals located in the study area. The sample was 484 respondents representing 40% of the population drawn from three States out of the six states and Abuja using Multistage sampling procedure. A 37 item questionnaire titled Principals Supervisory Competencies questionnaire (P.S.C.Q.) and Interview Schedule were used. The selection of seven principals for the interview schedule was purposively carried out. Instrument for data collection were validated by three experts and the reliability estimates for clusters A, B, C and D were0.96, 0.91, .0.69, 0.70 respectively and the four clusters put together was 0.94. The research questions were answered descriptively using mean and standard deviation, while the hypotheses were tested inferentially using the t-test statistic. The findings of this study showed that both male and female principals in the study area possess instructional leadership competencies, communication competencies and human relations competencies. However, the study revealed that ICT competencies were not possessed by both categories of principals, hence they require ICT competencies. Similarly, the study showed that four out of the eight null hypotheses were rejected because there was a significant difference in the opinions of the two groups and the remaining four were accepted. Based on the findings, conclusions and implications of the study, the researcher recommended, among other things that principals utilize the possessed competencies, government at all levels should fund training programmes for principals on ICT competency, the possession of ICT competencies should be made a requirement for appointment of principals. Others are integration of ICT competency acquisition into pre-service teacher training programmes, Association of Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS) should organize seminars’, workshops and conferences on ICT for her members. Government should as well map out strategies to monitor and ensure that principals utilize the supervisory competencies possessed by them to enhance teaching and learning in the school. Stakeholders of education such as NTI, TRCN should organize regular training on ICT for in-service teachers. The findings from the interview showed a consensus with the result of the questionnaire.