PRACTICES OF CLUSTER SUPERVISION AND UTILIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN SECONDARY SCHOOL OF JARER ZONE, SOMALI REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the practices of cluster supervision and utilization of educational resources in secondary school of Jarer zone, Somali regional state. To achieve this, a descriptive survey research design involving quantitative and qualitative approaches was used. The total population of the study was: teachers (N=253), School leaders (N=80) and others (EBHs, experts, supervisors, etc., N=17), which is summed to 350. Accordingly, from the total population of 350, the sample respondents taken were: teachers (n=76); school leaders (n=40; and others (EBHs, experts, supervisors, etc. n=9). Except for teachers and school leaders (who were selected by stratified random sampling), all the rest participants were chosen by expert sampling. Questionnaires, interviews, and FGDs were tools of data collection. Descriptive (mean, SD, frequency counts and percentages) and inferential (t-test and regression analysis) statistics were used to analyze data. The findings of the study revealed that the current cluster supervisory activities are more or less functional and contributed to some extent to the teachers’ professional growth and advancement of their teaching-learning process and, thus helped students improve their academic performances. And thus, most of the teachers perceived the practice of cluster supervision positively. However, the effective implementation of the cluster supervision in facilitating teachers’ utilization of educational resources in their classrooms have been constrained by a number of challenges such as lack of motivation, commitment, and interest (reluctance) by some actors (teachers, supervisors and principals) and lack of relevant trainings and scarcity of educational resources as well as required cluster supervision manuals. The multiple regression analysis model explained that the major predictor variables, educational qualification (B=-.343, p=.070 > =0.05), work experience (B=.185, p=.031<=0.05), motivation (B=-0.204, p=0.001<=0.05), commitment (B=-0.197, p=0.001< = 0.05), availability of ERs (B=-0.168, p=0.006<=0.05), provision of manuals (B=-0.248, p=0.001 < =0.05) have unconstructively affected the effective implementation of the cluster supervision in the study area. Thus, it is suggested that regional, zonal and woreda education bureaus should give due attention and act up on the challenges identified by this study in order to make the maximum benefits out of the schools’ cluster supervision program.