An Assessment of the Utilization of the Quality Assurance and Standards Officers’ Reports and Recommendations on Quality Education Provision in Schools

Abstract

To enhance provision of quality education in schools, scholarly discourse has always arisen on the extent to which the final outcomes of instructional supervision are utilized. The purpose of this study was to examine the utilization of Quality Assurance and Standards Officers’ (QASOs’) reports and recommendations in enhancing provision of quality education in Nairobi and Machakos counties, Kenya. The study sought to find out the extent to which; instructional supervision reports and recommendation are used in the formulation of action plans in schools, educational administrative personnel use instructional supervision reports to advise the schools, QASOs conduct follow- up instructional supervision in schools, and QASOs’ instructional supervision reports and recommendations inform policy and plans formulation on quality education provision. The study employed ex facto research design targeting a population of 1481(N) comprising of school principals, Heads of Departments (HoDs) and QASOs. The study used stratified, purposive and simple random sampling techniques to obtain a sample of 460 (n) from the target population. Questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect data. The study established that the extent of the utilization of the QASOs’ instructional reports and recommendations in schools was found to be inadequate. The study recommends that the QASOs recommendations and reports to be based on the specific schools’ financial, physical or human resources and should capture immediate, short, medium and long term recommendations. The specific roles of the key stakeholders in schools, namely; teachers, HoDs, Deputy Principals, Principals, Parents or guardian, Sub-County Education Officers, QASOs etc should be clearly spelt out in the recommendations.