Influence of Head Teachers’ Instructional Supervisory Practices on Teacher Retention, And Gender on Their Supervisory Practices: A Study of Public Basic Schools in Swedru Circuit ‘A’, Agona West Municipality, Ghana

Abstract

Education has been earmarked as the greatest weapon that is instrumental in the socioeconomic advancement of a society. Practitioners such as Kieleko (2015) and Esia-Donkoh (2014) argued that education is an indispensable catalyst that strongly influences the development and economic fortunes of a nation and the quality of life of its people. Accordingly, many countries around the globe, including Ghana, have committed themselves to global education policies such as Education for All, Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education, and Free Senior High School. In the quest to provide quality education, educators, administrators, and researchers have recognised the role of instructional supervision in achieving education success worldwide. Instructional supervision has been explained as the process through which the head of a school tries to work with teachers and other staff members in a cooperative manner to improve teaching and learning in the school (Afolabi&Loto, 2008). According to Wanzare (2012), instructional supervision encompasses all activities that are directed specifically toward establishment, maintenance, and improvement of teaching and learning process in schools. Instructional supervisors are, therefore, the individuals who are in supervisory positions in schools to provide leadership to teachers, and who have the basic responsibility to work with teachers to improve the quality of instruction to enhance quality learning on the part of students. Such people include school inspectors, headteachers, assistant headteachers, departmental heads and curriculum specialists (Glickman, Gordon& Ross-Gordon, 2004).