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

• At times school inspectors during inspection visits come across teachers who are better knowledged in the subject area. This not only embarrasses the inspectors, resulting in a bad working relationship but adds no value to the inspection exercise. • The school inspectors, who are supposed to be as regular as once each term in schools for inspection, have been reported to be missing for even a full year. Some of the reasons given are technically acceptable but many times failure is due to inspector individual weakness. • There is un- resolved controversy between the Ministry of Education and Sports and Ministry of local government supported by the district local governments which are responsible for primary school inspection activities. While local governments claim poor funding taking place, Ministry of Education claims that appropriate funding is effected and calculated based on a unit cost for inspecting a school. For now long no solution has been found. • Further, the local government school inspectors have also claimed that some of the local politicians encroach shamelessly on the insufficient inspection funds leaving the balance too insufficient to enable them do their work as planned. • The district local leaders at the end of it all turn around to accuse the inspectors of schools for adding no value to teacher instructional effectiveness because they are always very thin on the ground. For fear of their jobs, inspectors have never pointed any accusing finger into any of their bosses who confront them after misusing the inspection funds. • Inspectors who use motorcycles on long and dusty roads claim that by the time they reach the schools, they are too dirty to talk about cleanliness and tidiness to any of the teachers and learners. They have also claimed that the bad roads and their old motorcycles have affected their back bones rendering them physically less functional too early. • The local government policy is not decisively clear about the link between local government school inspectors and the Directorate of Education Standards. While DES has the mandate to monitor local government school inspections, it lacks the mandate to reprimand them. DES can’t take any action. This implies that even if DES cites a weakness such weakness may not be easily corrected if local government inspectors don’t voluntarily accept to do so. Since the relationship between DES and local government school inspectors is just cordial, the retraining, advice and accountability over inspection is only for those districts freely willing to corporate. • While monitoring and supervision of the inspection activities would add value to teacher effectiveness, the education officers at the district and DES lack sufficient funding to supervise the way inspections are conducted in local governments. • The district education officers who would implement the inspection recommendations on behalf of the district council lack sufficient facilitation to make them always available on the ground to enforce such recommendations. • For lack of sufficient funding and being very thin on the ground, there is serious lack of peer-support within the inspectors in districts neighbouring each other. • Inspectors of schools fail to oversee the planning and implementation of school performance review meetings due to funding problems. This has left schools failing to invite their stakeholders to participate in school performance review meetings or for those that make attempt not to do it efficiently. • Inspection recommendations that would be disseminated to the schools’ stakeholders many times have not because the inspectors of schools who would oversee this important activity fail for various reasons like time, funding and knowledge on what to be done. • Peer review meetings are not regularly organized for the benefit of the weak teachers because inspectors are either not facilitated or lack knowledge on what to do. • Inspectors of schools who are mandated with organizing remedial and demonstration lessons have failed to do it for financial reasons or lack of knowledge on what to be done. • Capacity building renews teachers’ performance levels but because the inspectors who are mandated with this pedagogical activity either have no time, lack knowledge on what to be done or are never financially facilitated. • The inspectors of schools are mandated with school mapping but because they are overwhelmed by selfish politicians have allowed whoever has the money to construct schools anywhere without technical advice. This has led to mushrooming of schools and leaving other areas sparsely supplied with schools. • The school inspectors are not independent in their work. They cannot provide their technical advice without interference from the political or local authorities for selfish ends. Therefore, whatever mistake in quality assurance matters in Uganda is not squarely the weakness of the inspectors of schools. • The inspectors of schools are mandated with overseeing the welfare of the educators in Uganda but because their welfare is equally dilapidated, they Volume XXI Issue IV Version I 59 ( G ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - © 2021 Global Journals Year 2021 School Inspectors do not add Value to Teacher Instructional Effectiveness in Government-Aided Primary Schools of the Least Developed African Countries: Case of Uganda