A STUDY OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER’S ATTITUDE TO SCHOOL INSPECTION IN UVWIE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF DELTA STATE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
School inspection is concerned with the improvement of standards and quality of education and is an integral part of school improvement programs.
Dodd (1968) defined inspection based on UNESCO’s 1962 definition as “the specific process whereby a school is examined and evaluated as a place of
learning in such a way that advice may be given for its improvement and that advice embodied in a report”. According to him, inspection is a constant and
continuous process of more personal guidance based on frequent visits when attention is directed to one or more aspects of the schools and its organization.
Education has grown in complexity and in terms of number of institutions – private and public and subjects in the curriculum beyond the scope of administrators with professionals (Education voicers) as inspectors of schools
Inspection is a legal requirement thus making it necessary for every ministry of Education in Nigeria to have an inspectorate department whose function is to
carry out inspection of school to ensure that standards are maintained and act as agent of quality control in education.
School inspection has a long history. In its early days, it had a very limited purpose. With the introduction of state systems of education, governments needed
to check that their statutory requirements for schools were being observed. This usually involved inspecting attendance records, pupils discipline and basic
standards of literacy and numeracy. The function of schools was to produce a minimally educated workforce, not to provide the nation’s children with an
education for enhancing the qualities of their own lives. To carry out this task, inspectors needed little direct experience of teaching in schools. They were
government agents who policed, rather than supported, the work of schools. Not surprisingly, they soon gained an unwelcome reputation.
Today, in many countries around the world, school inspection plays a much wider and more substantial role in the work and development of schools.
Historically, schools had decided what to teach, how the content would be taught and what parents should be told about their children’s performance and
progress. Little wonder that schools were known as “secret gardens”. What went on inside them was a mystery to most outsiders. Major his
in social, economic and political thinking and attitudes in the industrialized nations over the last 30 years have swept away such freedoms and
independence. Accountability, value for money, competition, stakeholder rights, new technologies and globalization now dictate the shape and direction of
education and schools. Schools are very different places, open to public scrutiny, more directly subject to the needs of national social and economic policy, and expected to serve the local communities in which they are situated. Partnership has replaced imposition as the means for bringing about change.
“Working together” is the new doctrine. It is generally agreed that effective
progress is consequent upon the involvement and satisfaction of all stakeholders.
For schools, the notion of the “secret garden” is a thing of the past.
Developments in school inspection have kept pace with these changes. Of course, inspectors still have a basic duty to check that government requirements
are met. But increased accountability has meant increased government control. National Curriculums are now familiar features of many advanced education
systems. They define what is taught, and in many cases how it is taught. National testing has been introduced to measure not just the performance of
students, but also the performance of schools. Inspection systems have been restructured to help promote and support these developments. Inspection now
has three main functions; to make clear national performance standards and targets, to guide and support all schools in achieving them, and to assess the
progress made by individual schools in reaching them. School inspection reports are detailed, evaluative, and publicly available and provide the basis for action by schools.
