Global Journal of Human Social Science, G: Linguistics and Education, Volume 21 Issue 4

School Inspectors do not add Value to Teacher Instructional Effectiveness in Government-Aided Primary Schools of the Least Developed African Countries: Case of Uganda Lubwama Joseph Ntege Abstract- A least developed country is one with a less devel oped industrial base an d low human development index relative to other countries. In Africa, there are thirty- three countries that are classified as least countries. Such countries in Africa include: Burundi, Eretria, Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Togo, Guinea Bissau, Central African Republic and Uganda to list a few (Mwanazia, G.M, 1985).These countries are doing everything possible to cause social, economic, industrial and agricultural development so as to be among the developed countries. They visualize education as the key to the development status they intend to achieve. Their budgets are targeting strengthening primary education which will be enhanced by the school inspection systems they each have ( Wanga, H. K, 1985). Uganda, a former British protectorate that won her independence in 1962, located within the tropics of cancer and Capricorn also has the equator imaginary line horizontally running through it. According to its Vision 2040, primary education is one of the fundamental bases the country hopes to use to achieve the middle income social – economic development status. Uganda hopes that to achieve a strong primary education base, teacher instructional effectiveness will be the way to go. It is hoped that not only will factors like quality of teacher training, experience of teachers, teacher knowledge and collaboration, support supervision, attitude of teachers towards work and the environment in which work is conducted contribute to teacher instructional effectiveness (Lockeed & Vespoor, 1991) but as according to Glickman & Tashmaro, (1980) learner motivation, attendance, collaboration and constant practical work on the other hand all promote teacher instructional effectiveness. Instructional effectiveness is not only a task for teachers and learners par se , but for all stakeholders like parents, community members and chiefly school inspectors because school inspectors provide technical advice that improves the teacher instructional process (Gruwe, 2000). School inspection, however, is still faced with challenges that need to be addressed so as their efforts yield into teacher instructional effectiveness. In Uganda, lack of appropriate funding for inspection activities, a weak local government law that fails to link properly the central and local government inspection bodies, the existing corruption tendencies at the centre and in local governments, failure to implement the inspection recommendations are some of the challenges, like it is elsewhere in least developed countries, the school inspection arm has to overcome to achieve teacher instructional effectiveness. It is concluded that since teacher instructional effectiveness is very instrumental in achieving Uganda’s vision 2040 then the existing inspection challenges should be addressed. Among the key strategies is for the government of Uganda to transfer the school inspection functions from the Ministry of Education and Sports and also from the Ministry of Local government and to create a School Inspection Authority that gets funding directly from the central funding source. This Authority should report directly to Ministers’ cabinet meeting of the Central government. I. I ntroduction n most least developed countries, the classroom learning environments are so congested that the only one available teacher finds no space to stand in to deliver effectively the lesson, the teacher – pupil ratio is usually 1: 200 or above. Its common practice for learning to take place without teachers preparing lessons and under shades of trees e.g in South Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic. Classroom instruction is not effective, given, the performance of learners in examinations and the quality of learners from the primary schools especially the government- aided schools. Despite there being departments for school inspection in these countries, their roles are more of collecting data from schools than providing technical advice for instructional effectiveness. Uganda is a country located within the tropics of cancer and Capricorn, south of the Saharan desert, along the equator and within the East African Community block. Uganda is a former British Protectorate that won her independence in 1962. Like other developing tropical African countries, Uganda faced political turbulences shortly after attaining independence that curtailed its social economic development. However, they calmed down in the 1990s. These years adversely affected many of its social sectors including classroom instruction. An inspector of schools is a technical person charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the quality of education provision in all education institutions prevails at all cost. In Uganda like it is in the least developed countries of Africa, according to MoES (2016), there are school inspectors for pre-primary, I Volume XXI Issue IV Version I 57 ( G ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - © 2021 Global Journals Year 2021 Author: Kyambogo University, Kampala, Uganda. e-mail: joselubwesa@gmail.com