Reforming school supervision

for quality improvement

Module

The organization of
supervision services

Reforming school supervision for quality improvement

These modules were prepared by IIEP staff to be used in training workshops or by individuals as self-study
materials.
The series Reforming school supervision for quality improvement consists of eight modules:
Module 1: Supervision: a key component of a quality monitoring system
Module 2: Role and functions of supervisors.
Module 3: The organization of supervision services
Module 4: The management of supervision staff
Module 5: The management of supervisory work
Module 6: Reinforcing school-site supervision
Module 7: Alternative models in reforming school supervision
Module 8: Undertaking a national diagnosis on school supervision: some guidelines
The set of modules is available at www.unesco.org/iiep
Also available on IIEPs web site:

Quantitative research methods in educational planning

Reforming school supervision

HIV/AIDS and education

Using indicators in planning Education For All

Other sets will be available soon.

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Module 3
THE ORGANIZATION OF SUPERVISION
SERVICES

Introduction

Scope of the Module

Expected outcomes

The organization of the supervision service: the traditional

pattern

A.

The structure of the supervision service

B.

Supervision and other quality improvement and monitoring services

12

Recent changes in the organization of the service

17

A.

Decentralizing supervision

18

B.

Creating resource centres and school clusters

20

Lessons learned

27

Annex: Examples of resource centres in different countries

28

References

30

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

Introduction
Different countries organize their supervision service in very different ways,
depending on its role and what is expected of it. When the service is supposed to
offer regular advice and support to teachers, its organization and structure should
logically be unlike a service that has to exercise external control of schools. Most
countries, however, have very similar supervision structures, which is certainly not
surprising as, in addition to their services having similar historical backgrounds,
most have assigned similar roles to them.
The size of a country, of its education system and of its management structure has
a clear impact on the organization of supervision. Small island states, for instance,
will sometimes have no intermediate structures between the Ministry and the
school, while large federal nations may have four or more levels of administration
and supervision. In such cases, the organization of supervision can become very
complicated with, at times, a detrimental impact on its effectiveness.
Even where the organization is rather simple, the distribution of tasks and of
officers between levels might need to be rethought, for at least two reasons: on the
one hand, the need for officers from different services (e.g. inspection and
curriculum development) to co-ordinate their interventions; on the other hand, the
growing demand for more autonomy from schools and principals.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

Scope of the Module

This module will first examine in detail the traditional pattern of organizing the
supervision service. It will look at:
the structure of the service itself and reflect on its effectiveness; and
the ways in which this service relates to other services that play a role in
quality monitoring and improvement (such as: teacher training,
examinations and tests, and so on).
In recent years, the organization of the service has undergone change in many
countries for various reasons, some of which are related to the need for a schoolbased quality assurance approach (see Module 1), some to the changing role of
the supervision service (see Module 2) and others to the need for streamlining the
existing structure. Three reforms, all aiming at bringing supervision closer to the
school, are particularly important: further decentralization of the service; the
creation of school clusters and resource centres; and the intensification of
supervision at the school site, e.g. by senior staff. Section 2 of this module will
examine in detail the first two reforms while the third one forms the topic of
Module 6 and will not be examined here.

Expected outcomes
At the end of this module, the reader should be able to:
understand the rationale behind the present structure of the supervision
service in different countries, and its problems and challenges;
appreciate the importance of co-ordination between supervision and
other quality monitoring and improvement services;
discuss recent reforms in the structure of the supervision service; and
analyze the improvements these reforms can bring as well as the
challenges they encounter.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

The organization of the supervision service: the

traditional pattern
This part will address two issues: the structure of the supervision service and the
relationships between supervision and other services aimed at improving and
monitoring quality.

A.

The structure of the supervision service

This section will look at two questions: first, it explains the complexity that
characterizes the supervision structure in most countries; second, it debates the
impact of such a complex structure on the effectiveness of the service.

Task 1
Before starting this section, you are asked to prepare a matrix, similar to the table below,
presenting the organization of the supervision service in your own country. This will offer answers
to the following questions:
At what levels are officers functioning?
Which schools (primary/secondary) do they supervise?
What are the functions of these different levels (control/support; administrative/ pedagogical)?
Levels

Responsible officers

Schools/Teachers to be
supervised

Functions to be
performed

Central

School

Completing the task: some hints

You will find on the next few pages examples of some completed matrices, from quite contrasting
situations. Completing this matrix could help you identify (1) functions that are not being covered;
(2) functions that are the responsibility of more than one level; and (3) functions that could be
better carried out by another level than the one presently responsible.
The complexity of developing this matrix probably mirrors the complexity of your supervision
system. This reflects a series of factors, including the size of your country and the level and
nature of decentralization and the number of actors who are expected to visit schools. In a small
centralized country, it would not be surprising to have only one set of officers in charge of
supervision. In a large, decentralized system, there could be several layers of officers who
belong to the Ministry of Education and in addition some people employed by local authorities.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

A complex structure
The organization of supervision and support services is complex, not to say
intricate, in most countries. There are mainly three explanations for this complexity.
First, in almost all countries supervision services exist at each important level
of the education administration: central, regional and local. This is a result of
the expansion of the education system and of its management structure. Services,
which originally existed only at central level, have been decentralized and now have
officers posted at several levels. In various countries, one single level has been
given the responsibility of visiting schools. In various others, all officers, from
central to district level, include school visits among their tasks. The distribution of
tasks between these levels is seldom clear.
Examples
In a number of countries, such as France, the central level will concentrate more on
system evaluation, through the publication of thematic reports, for example, while
local level supervision will be in charge of the raw inspection work, which entails in
particular the assessment of teachers. A significant group of countries assign the
same task of school supervision fundamentally to officers at various levels. In Sri
Lanka, schools are supervised by officers at central, provincial, zonal and divisional
levels and also by master teachers. The intensity of supervision differs somewhat
from one level to another: some days are set aside per month for school visits at
provincial as well as at zonal and divisional levels. In Nepal, on the other hand,
supervisors work only from district offices. Officers based above that level do not
have regular school visits among their main tasks.

Box 1:

Structures of school supervision in Korea and Sri Lanka

To illustrate the diversity in the structures of supervision systems, the following

are examples of more and less complex structures. Only those officers who have
to officially visit schools for supervision and/or support purposes are included.
Korea
Level

Responsible officers

Schools to be supervised

Central ministry

No supervision department

Metropolitan and
provincial offices

(Junior) supervisors in secondary

supervision section

High school

City and county

offices

(Junior) supervisors in elementary and

middle school education division

Elementary and middle

schools

In Korea, primary and secondary schools are supervised by only one actor, the
junior supervisor, based in the metropolitan and provincial offices, for secondary
schools, and in the city and county offices for primary schools. In Sri Lanka,
supervision is a major function at every level. Team supervisory visits are planned

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

at all levels, always in collaboration with officers from the other levels. The officers
closest to schools are expected to monitor school activities more frequently than
others.
1

Sri Lanka
Level

Responsible officers

Schools to be supervised

Central ministry

Education officers, primary/secondary

education unit

Primary/secondary
sections of national schools

Provincial

Education officers in the provincial

department of education

National schools
Type 1AB and 1C schools

Zonal

Education officers in the zonal

education office

Type 1AB and 1C schools

Type 2 and 3 schools

Divisional

Education officers in the divisional

education office

Type 1AB and 1C schools

School clusters

Master teachers

National schools
Type 1AB and 1C schools
Type 2 and 3 schools

In smaller countries, where the education system and administration is less

complex, the problem of co-ordination between levels is often less prevalent.
However, as examples in Box 2 show, small does not necessarily imply a simple
structure, and countries of similar sizes have developed quite different structures.

Note: Sri Lanka does not make a distinction between primary and secondary schools, but
classifies schools as follows:

Type 1AB

Schools with classes up to Grade 13 including G.C.E.

(Advanced Level) science, arts and business streams.

Type 1C

Schools with classes up to Grade 13 and including

G.C.E. arts and business Streams

Type 2

Schools with classes up to Grade 11

Type 3

Elementary schools with classes up to Grade 8

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

Box 2:

Structures of school supervision in small states

To illustrate the diversity in the structures of supervision systems, the following are
examples of more and less complex structures in countries that are characterized
either by their small size or a fairly small population.
Zanzibar
All inspectors work within the central Ministry of Education. The Division of
Inspection forms part of the Department of Professional Services. The head of the
Division is the Chief Inspector, followed in the hierarchy by the Co-ordinators. They
organize the work of primary and secondary inspectors and teacher advisors.
Primary inspectors are responsible for particular districts, but are based in the
central Ministry.
Grenada
The structure is not very different from Zanzibar. All supervisors, called Education
Officers (Schools), are based within the Ministry, under the leadership of a Senior
Education Officer. They are in charge of the supervision of both primary and
secondary schools. A separate section, however, exists for the supervision of and
support to early childhood education. In addition, there are several officers in
charge of teacher support and supervision and curriculum development for specific
subjects.
Dominica
Dominica, comparable in size and population to Grenada, has adopted quite a
different structure. Primary supervision is separated from secondary. Education
officers in charge of the supervision of primary schools are based in decentralized
offices at parish level. There is one Senior Education Officer, who supervises the
15 secondary schools.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

Box 3:

Structures of school supervision in some African states

Botswana
Primary and secondary supervision are separated. For primary schools, the
structure is as follows:

Level

Responsible officers

Main tasks

Central
ministry

Inspection unit within the Department of

Primary Education

Planning overall supervision

policy, some school visits

Regional

Six regional offices

Co-ordinating supervision work

Local

Regional offices are divided into inspectoral

areas with a Senior Education Officer, who is
the main supervisory actor.

School visits and report writing

For secondary schools, the structure is quite different:

Level

Responsible officers

Main tasks

Central
ministry

Inspection unit within the Department of

Secondary Education

Planning overall supervision

policy, some school visits

Regional

Five regional offices, with subject-specific

advisers.

School visits and report writing

At secondary level, at the time of writing, all regional offices are not yet fully
functional, as they do not all have the necessary subject-specific advisers.
Namibia
Level

Responsible officers

Main tasks

Central
ministry

Directorate Inspectorate and Advisory

Services

In-service training; policy

advice; system monitoring;
some school visits

Regional

Seven regional offices, with inspectors of

education and advisory teachers

School visits to primary and

secondary schools and report
writing

Local

Circuits and district offices (the latter to be

set up). These are areas of responsibility, not
specific offices.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

Secondly, schools of different levels and types, and different subjects, will be
supervised by distinct officers. In addition, many countries assign special
supervisors for specific groups of schools and specific subjects.
Examples
In the Indian State of Tamil Nadu, for example, specific inspectors cover respectively
all-girls schools, Anglo-Indian schools and the former Panchayat union schools. In
Uttar Pradesh, in addition to the distinction between primary and post-primary
school supervision, there are specific officers to supervise urban and rural schools
and special staff to visit girls schools.

In many countries, primary and secondary school supervision function separately.

Box 3 gives the example of Botswana, where this is the case, and of Namibia,
where no such separation exists. One intricate question concerns the advantages
and risks of separating primary from secondary school supervision. It seems to
make sense that primary school supervision be assigned to officers located closer
to the action, e.g. at district or local level, while secondary school supervision could
be the task of regional officers. Furthermore, primary inspectors are usually
generalists, while secondary inspectors are subject-area specialists. The examples
of Bangladesh and Nepal show that the issue is not that simple.
Examples
In Bangladesh, in 1988, the creation of separate directorates for the management
and supervision of primary and secondary and higher education is believed to have
strengthened the supervision structure of primary education. However, such a
separation of supervision in two services is not without problems. In Nepal, in the
1980s, supervision of primary and secondary schools was also the responsibility of
different actors. Following an evaluation in 1989, it was decided to combine these
tasks and to assign supervision of both school levels to the same person. This was
linked to the organization of primary and secondary schools in clusters and, at the
same time, it was thought that it could lead to a more intensive use of existing staff.
Currently, some supervisors who feel inadequately equipped to offer subject-specific
guidance at secondary level are contesting this reform.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

Questions
What is the situation of your country in this regard?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary schools being supervised
by different officers?

Should separate professionals be in charge of primary and secondary school

supervision? There is no easy answer to this question. To a large extent, it depends
on the focus of the supervision visit: whether it is more oriented towards the school
than the individual teacher; that is, more on management than on pedagogical
practice. It makes sense to have one common service when school management is
the main issue to be covered; and separate subject officers at secondary level
where the subject knowledge of the individual teachers are the main concerns.
Having one service to supervise both primary and secondary has two advantages: it
allows for a more intensive use of the supervision staff, with the school/supervisor
ratio being smaller; and it can intensify collaboration between primary and
secondary schools within a cluster. The risk, however, is that supervisors, who have
generally been working in and with primary schools, will not easily be accepted
within secondary schools or will be unable to offer useful advice. The reverse is
true though probably to a lesser extent for those with mainly secondary school
experience. The implications for recruitment needs to be carefully considered and
will be addressed in Module 4.
Thirdly, officers will also be differentiated on the basis of their tasks,
separating for example inspectors or supervisors from advisers, or separating the
supervision of administrative aspects from that of pedagogic aspects. In some
cases, a distinction will be made between the inspection of teachers and the
supervision of the schools management, through the inspection of the
headteacher. Yet another distinction is that between monitoring the system, in
many instances a task of a specific corps of officers at central level, and monitoring
the individual schools.
Examples
In Nepal, a distinction exists between school supervisors and resource persons, who
are solely responsible for offering advice. Thailand draws a distinction between
inspection (monitoring the implementation of education policy) and supervision (the
instructional improvement of schools and teachers). The central level is mainly in
charge of inspection. Two separate groups of inspectors exist: the inspectorsgeneral, who have their own department and focus on the macro-picture of overall
policies and the inspectors, who work within the existing Ministry departments and
are only concerned with the micro-view of policies related to their department.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

10

Supervision is the task of both the central and regional levels and is carried out by
supervisors. The Irish Inspectorate is composed of three sections: primary; postprimary (both essentially supervision agencies); and the psychological service
(mainly a support agency). In several countries, including France and Spain, a
distinction is made between supervision of pedagogical and of administrative
matters

A problematic structure?
The available literature and the experiences of different countries shows that such
complex multi-level structures carry a number of problems:
They lead to an unclear division of tasks. The distribution of
responsibilities between, for instance, a pedagogical support unit and a
school inspection unit is seldom made explicit. It has been known for staff
from different offices to visit schools on the same day, not knowing about
the others visit.
The spread of staff over different levels and different sections leads to
small numbers of staff in each, which limits their impact and results in an
inefficient duplication of administrative services. This is particularly
worrisome when the financial resources available to supervision services
are scarce.
There could also be a problem of conflicting lines of authority, which is
especially pre-occupying for schools influenced by different authorities.
Schools and teachers receive visits and advice from many different
sources, which could disorientate rather than help. Lack of co-ordination
between these officers adds to their confusion.
There are, however, two possible advantages of having officers at different levels
visit schools. First, it increases the total number of people that are supposed to
undertake school visits and could therefore increase their frequency. Secondly,
such visits allow the school administration system to remain in close contact with
the daily realities of the school.
While it is fairly straightforward to identify the problems that a particular
organization can face, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. What is the best
model for a country depends on several factors, including:
the role which the supervision service is supposed to play. If the service is
expected simply to exercise administrative control every two or
three years, evidently less officers have to be placed close to school than
in a service which has as its main task to offer intensive and regular
support to teachers;
the strength and experience of headteachers and of teachers. The
following principle can be a useful guideline: the more professional school
staff are, the less supervision and support they need;
the size of the country and of the education system;
the functions exercised by other services. All efforts should be made to
avoid overlap. Where a strong teacher training and development service
that regularly goes out to schools exists, the supervision service might not
need to include teacher development as an explicit task in its mandate;
and
Module 3: The organization of supervision services

11

 the available finances. It makes little sense to demand that supervisors

undertake tasks for which they do not have the necessary resources. In
such a situation, it is better to limit their mandate.
Part II of this module will comment on a number of changes that many countries
have introduced in order to overcome the weaknesses which characterizes their
present organization. One aspect to consider in more detail, however, before
examining these reforms, concerns the relationship between supervision and the
other services that have a role to play in quality improvement and monitoring.

B.

Supervision and other quality improvement and monitoring

services

Supervision, as was mentioned before, is only one of the services that has as its
main tasks the improvement of the performance of schools and teachers. It also
forms part of an overall quality monitoring system (see Module 1).
While the internal co-ordination of the supervision service poses problems, the
relationships between supervision and these other services must also be analyzed.

Question
What are the different services that have a role to play in pedagogical improvement and/or
quality monitoring and with whom supervisors should regularly exchange information?

What interaction, if any, exists between these services and the supervision service?

Among the services in charge of pedagogical improvement and/or monitoring, one

can mention pedagogical research departments, teacher training institutions,
examination centres and curriculum centres. Ideally, the relations between
supervision and these other services, in particular teacher training, should be close
and well organized. In such a way, supervision findings and recommendations
could feed into teacher training and curriculum development, while there would be
a greater rapport between examinations and the delivered curriculum. Such a
coherent set of interventions would offer more help to teachers, who are at times
confused by the conflicting advice coming from these different sources.
In order to create an effective interaction between supervision and these other
services, four broad factors are of particular relevance:
1. supervision visits collect information relevant to pedagogical
improvement;

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

12

2. supervision reports are disseminated to the different interested

services and provide them with relevant easy-to-access
information, so that they can act upon the recommendations;
3. supervisors have a role to play in, for instance, examination
writing, achievement testing or teacher training;
4. mechanisms of a formal or less formal nature for co-operation
and exchange of information between supervision and other
pedagogical improvement/monitoring services exist or are being
developed.
Research conducted by the IIEP shows that in most countries such contacts are
few and far between and are seldom institutionalized. This is particularly
preoccupying in countries as diverse as India or the Bahamas, where teacher
training institutions do not have the potential to train all newly recruited teachers.
As a result, many teachers enter the service without previous training. Supervisors,
more than in other countries, could be expected to build teachers capacities
through informal support sessions.
The following paragraphs give some details on the situation as far as teacher
training is concerned in five Asian countries. This is followed by the example of
Botswana, which offers a different picture.
Examples
In the five Asian countries, contacts are rare where pre-service training is
concerned. Such training is generally in the hands of teacher training institutions,
with whom acting supervisors have little contact. As regards in-service teacher
training, supervision staff should have a more active role to play, but this is only the
case, out of the five countries, in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In Bangladesh, the
supervisors devote a considerable amount of their time (13 per cent on average) to
running and improving teacher training within school clusters. In Sri Lanka, a
distinction must be made between short-term and long-term in-service training.
Supervisors are of little importance to the latter, as it is mainly the concern of
training institutions. Where short-term programmes are concerned, they enter the
picture, as one of their main responsibilities is precisely to organize such
programmes, including for instance management training for headteachers. The Sri
Lanka report, however, also comments that the lack of co-ordination between
different implementing organizations leads to duplication in in-service training. In
Korea, Nepal and Uttar Pradesh, supervisors have no involvement in in-service
teacher training and it does not appear in any of the job descriptions. In Korea, for
instance, in-service training is in the hands of institutions with which supervisors
have no regular, organized contact.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

13

In Botswana, primary school supervisors, called Education Officers, take part in

other pedagogical activities:
they are members of subject panels responsible for curriculum
development;
they participate in item-writing, pre-testing and supervision with regard to
examinations;
pre-service education: they sit on the Advisory Committees of the Colleges
of Education, which, among other things, review the colleges curricula;
they are members of In-Service Committees, which exist at regional level
and on which teachers, headteachers and NGOs are represented.
At secondary level, supervisors are even more deeply involved in other pedagogical
support functions: this can be explained by the fact that for a long time Senior
Education Officers were solely responsible for all aspects of their subjects, and that
only recently some tasks have been given to other departments. They retain
important duties, for instance as Chief Examiner in their respective subjects.
While the Botswana case seems the most amenable to developing supervision as
an integrated component of a pedagogical improvement service, it is not without
problems. With the ever increasing number of schools and pressure from within the
Ministry and from the public in general for more inspections, Senior Education
Officers have found the duties they do in co-operation with or on behalf of other
departments to be an added burden that limits their capacity to supervise schools
more effectively. Indeed, it is difficult to argue that supervisors need to widen their
co-operation with other school and teacher support services, while recognizing at
the same time that they spend too little time on their priority task: supervision.
This raises a number of issues.
First, in which of these fields should supervisors, as a priority, be
involved? The one field that comes closest to their core task, supervision,
is undoubtedly in-service training. It could be argued that a good school
visit should take the form of an informal training session of school staff.
In addition, many recommendations, which conclude visits, relate to the
need for such training. Ensuring that supervisors work closely together
with other staff in charge of in-service training might also help in changing
the image of the supervisor in a positive way.
A second question concerns the form that supervisors involvement in
other services should take. Should it be left to individuals in for example
their field offices to decide in what area to be involved or should the
supervision service, as an institution, ensure that its views and opinions
are taken into account? In other words, the choice exists between relying
on informal contacts or formal rules, which are not mutually exclusive
strategies.
While there are no simple answers to these questions, some more practical
solutions exist.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

14

Question
What practical steps can fairly easily be taken to alleviate this lack of co-ordination between
supervision and other quality monitoring services?

It is important to ensure that some form of contact exists between supervisors,

teacher trainers, curriculum developers and others, through, as a minimum, the
exchange of reports, and, where possible, the organization of team visits. This is
illustrated by the following excerpt of a management audit prepared by the IIEP for
the Grenada Ministry of Education.
Example

The roles of two categories of officers (Education Officers and Curriculum

Development Officers) are different and at the same time fully complementary.
While the Curriculum Development Officers concentrate on pedagogical advice and
support to the individual teachers, the Education Officers combine control and
support functions in administrative as well as pedagogical matters, and they focus
more on the school. It should be clear, however, that in order to do their work
properly, Curriculum Development Officers cannot ignore what goes on in the school
as a whole, in the same way that Education Officers cannot properly monitor the
functioning of schools if they ignore what is going on in the classrooms.
Consequently, co-operation and convergence are needed. In order to obtain such cooperation, practical steps could be taken at three complementary levels:

Planning of school visits: to date, there has been no co-ordination in planning

visits between different officers. A mechanism should be worked out whereby
officers of the two units exchange information on planned visits in order to
arrive at a rational and balanced distribution of those visits between schools.
Ideally, visits should be planned jointly on the basis of a clear and common
identification of the needs of different schools.

Exchange of information: reporting on school visits is presently limited to a strict

minimum. The absence of systematic recording of substantive findings after
school visits does not facilitate co-ordination between different officers visiting
the same school. A standard format could be worked out for recording such
findings in a systematic and concise way. Such records would then be
systematically added to each individual school file, which should be common to
the two units. By keeping such school files (which could be rapidly
computerized), a good database could be built up on the quality problems in
each individual school, which should facilitate co-ordination and targeted joint
intervention.

Source: IIEP & Grenada Ministry of Education, 2000.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

15

Team building: indeed, co-ordination should go beyond exchange of information.

Its ultimate aim is to pursue the development of common approaches to
supervision work and the creation of a team spirit through appropriate capacitybuilding activities such as regular workshops, common school visits and so on.
Already, Curriculum Development and Education Officers co-operate in carrying
out occasional school performance reviews, which could constitute a good
starting point for further development of teamwork.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

16

Recent changes in the organization of the

service
The description of the organization of supervision, in the previous sections, reflects
to a large extent what has existed in most countries for a long time. In recent years,
several changes were introduced that have had an impact on the services
organization. The previous paragraphs already referred to some of these. The
purpose of this section is to offer a clearer description of each of these trends.

Task 2
Identify recent reforms in your country concerning the structure of your supervision system. What
have been the reasons for these reforms?
Reflect on any other innovative strategies concerning the organization and structure of the
service that could lead to improvements.

Completing the task: some hints

In many cases, what was felt to be one main weakness of the supervision service was the
distance between the supervisors and the schools. Partly as a result, schools were too rarely
visited, in particular the remote small rural schools. Many countries therefore tried to bridge that
gap by creating an extra supervisory level under the present lowest level or by bringing schools
together in clusters, sometimes with a resource centre in the middle.
In a few other cases, countries decide to centralize their service. One example is England and
Wales, to which we will come back in Module 7. Their objective is to streamline the service and
clarify its structure by abolishing the intermediate levels.
When examining the reforms in your own country, it is useful to examine to what extent the
service is being centralized or decentralized and what are the reasons for these strategies.

The traditional organization of the supervision service has a number of

weaknesses, which have been listed above. They relate both to inefficiency (the
spread of officers over too many units) and ineffectiveness (the low impact of
schools). This led to the search for new organizational models. In addition, this
search was inspired by, on the one hand, the demand to develop, within the
supervision service, a quality-assurance culture rather than a quality-control
approach, and, on the other hand, a change in the focus of supervision: away from
external control and towards school and teacher development
In light of this, it is hardly surprising that numerous countries have attempted, at
different times, to improve on or reform the organization of existing services. Three
types of reform have been particularly popular. Their purpose is to bring
supervision closer to where the action is taking place, that is to say to the schoolModule 3: The organization of supervision services

17

site level. They do so in different ways: by decentralizing the service further; by

building up a new structure (the resource centre) between the supervisors and the
schools; or by strengthening in-school supervision. The following paragraphs
discuss the first two strategies, while the third one will be examined in Module 6.

A.

Decentralizing supervision

Throughout the expansion of the education system, one preoccupation has been
the increasing distance between the supervisors and the schools. Several
countries have tried to close that distance through the creation of additional levels
of supervision and support staff, under the level closest to the school. In that way,
the first district offices were set up and in more recent times various countries
have created a sub-district level. This fits within an overall policy of decentralization
of the educational management system, which has gained in popularity over the
last decade or so.
Several countries have taken this organizational reform as an opportunity to
attempt to transform the focus of the service, by demanding from these newly
appointed staff that they develop a collegial relationship with teachers and
dedicate more time to support and advice and less to control.
Examples
Bangladesh created in 1980 a new tier of officials called the Assistant Thana
(district) education officers, who have quickly become the main linkage between
schools and the administration. Their creation has improved the ratio of schools to
supervisors from 100 to 20. These officers are expected to visit the schools at least
twice a month, once for school-based teacher training and once for general
supervision. Belize has set up administrative structures around existing district
education centres, which includes the transfer of education officers away from the
central Ministry offices and the establishment of District Councils. Another wellknown example concerns Pakistan, which in 1979 introduced the position of
learning co-ordinators, who have to visit some 10-20 schools per month. A
comparable strategy exists in, for example, Bermuda, where these professionals are
called peripatetic resource teachers; in Myanmar, with its assistant township
education officers; and in Lao. In the last country, this is being accompanied by the
creation of school clusters.

Questions
What, from your point of view, could be the advantages of such a strategy?
What will be the problems encountered when trying to implement it?
What, therefore should be the accompanying measures during implementation?

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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Two different issues crop up here: how feasible it is to create an extra tier of
officers, based closer to schools; and how these officers can be concerned more
with support than with control. The answers to these questions can to some extent
be found in the experiences of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The Pakistani strategy of placing learning co-ordinators close to schools proved to
have quite a number of benefits at the early stage of its implementation3: a
significant reduction in teacher absenteeism; improvements in the quality of
teaching; increased enrolment and better attendance by students; an opportunity
for teachers to discuss their problems with persons not primarily concerned with
administration; a greater sense of professionalism among teachers; the use of coordinators as substitutes for missing teachers; better communication from district
management to the schools.
But this strategy is not without risks. It demands, more precisely, a fairly heavy
investment to ensure that the new tier of officials can perform efficiently. One can
wonder, if there were not enough resources available to strengthen existing
supervisors, why create a new structure? In many countries, the creation of a
separate level of educational administration between the Ministry and schools
might not be feasible. The Bangladesh experience is rather typical of what took
place in many other countries. The Assistant Thana Education Officers faced,
because of the financial constraints, difficult working conditions and in particular
lack of transport. As a result, their school visits were not nearly as frequent as
expected and the time they spent in school too short for serious developmental
work with teachers. Little was put in place to accompany this reform and allow for a
change in culture: recruitment procedures and criteria remained the same, while
training was lacking. The result is therefore mixed: more school visits are indeed
taking place, but they remain of a bureaucratic nature and the overall cost of the
supervision service has increased, with little benefit to be shown for it.
A less cost-intensive alternative is to post single supervisors at district level,
perhaps within general administrative offices. But this could bring about several
challenges:
these officers will have to work without their own support staff such as
secretaries;
the lack of colleagues could lead to a sense of isolation and an absence
of exchanges and discussions, which offer important learning
opportunities; and
the question of who will control these officers also needs to be decided
upon.
When these close-to-school actors undertake support-oriented tasks, a different
issue can arise, one of jealousy and rivalry between the different officers. This was
clearly the case in Pakistan: because of the introduction of the learning coordinators, incumbent district education officers felt that their authority was being
undermined and supervisors complained that they did not receive the same special
allowances and motorbikes as the learning co-ordinators. The integration of these
co-ordinators into the existing administrative structures, however, has tempered
those feelings of jealousy, but now this staff have lost their original character and
have become just another group of supervisors.

Source: Warwick et al, 1989, p. 298.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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Another issue is that when adding a level to the administration, responsibilities and
resources should be taken away from other levels, for the system not to lose in
efficiency. This is difficult, both politically and from a management point of view.

B.

Creating resource centres and school clusters

Strengthening collaboration between schools by setting up a system of mutual

support and supervision generally takes the form of clustering schools around
resource centres. This strategy is comparable to the previous one, in the sense
that it leads to the creation of an additional layer between the district and the
schools. It is different, however, as its objectives are twofold: on the one hand, to
orient supervision more towards development and support, rather than control;
and, on the other hand, to allow schools to benefit from each others experiences
and expertise. It aims to some extent at replacing the external supervision actors
(the inspectors and district education officers) by a system that is in part schoolbased. The following paragraphs will examine in more detail:
what precisely is a resource centre;
different options in the organization of these centres;
what has been their impact on school improvement; and
what seem to be the more successful experiences.

What is a resource centre and what are its objectives

There exist several types of resource centres. The following elements characterize
all of them:
it is a physical location, with its own staff;
its activities include the provision of resource materials to teachers, but
can also include other more pro-active support strategies, such as inservice training; and
its clientele consists of the teachers and schools from the surrounding
area.
What is probably more important, however, than these characteristics are the
objectives of a centre. Its ultimate objective is to contribute to the improvement of
teaching and learning in the schools. To do so, it can play different roles:
it offers teachers and schools access to resources, which will help in
improving their practices;
it offers training, either in the centre or in schools;
it allows teachers from different schools to meet and discuss with each
other.
In many countries, the development of resource centres is linked to school
clusters. As a rule, they group neighbouring schools around a larger core school,
where the resource centre might be based. When linked with school clusters,
resource centres generally have two more explicit objectives:

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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 first, to improve teaching by sharing resources, experience and expertise

among staff; and
second, to facilitate administration and gain from economies of scale.
Both clusters and resource centres exist in an increasing number of countries. The
names differ from one place to another. Clusters can be called nuclei,
pedagogical zones, complexes, school learning cells, core and satellite schools,
while the terms teacher or educational resource centre can be used
interchangeably. School clusters or a similar arrangement exist in most countries
of Latin America and in a wide and diverse range of other countries, in many cases
in conjunction with resource centres. Countries do not all follow exactly the same
model when setting up resource centres and organizing schools into clusters.
Annex I shows the variety of experiences in different countries and contexts.

Task 3
Read through Annex I and highlight some important distinctions between different resource
centre strategies.

Completing the task: some hints

A number of differences exist between resource centres in different countries. Several can be
identified. Five are mentioned here briefly, while two more fundamental ones are discussed in
the following paragraphs.
In some countries, additional staff (such as teacher trainers, master teachers or resource
persons) are employed at the centre. In others, existing school staff, in particular principals, are
given additional tasks.
Resource centres and school clusters can be set up mainly to facilitate the administration of the
increasing number of schools or to improve pedagogical practices through exchanges between
schools.
Resource centres can be completely new structures or the task of resourcing schools can be
given to existing units, such as teacher training centres.
The strategy can be implemented from the top down with the Ministry organizing schools clusters
and building up resource centres. Or it can be the result of initiatives taken at the local level, with
principals and teachers deciding that, in the absence of regular supervision and support, they will
meet from time to time to discuss their challenges and innovative practices.
The strategy can cover the whole country or only certain areas, for instance the remote rural
ones.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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Two core options in the development of resource centres

The description of the functioning of resource centres in some selected countries
shows a wide variety of experiences in the roles assigned to these centres and in
the tasks performed by them. We will comment here on two issues that must be
considered when setting up a resource centres system and that will have a great
impact on the need for financing and staffing.
1.

Should the staff in RCs be involved in teacher training and therefore

go out to school or should they remain in their centre and limit
themselves to providing materials and resources to teachers?

There are three arguments to support the claim that RCs should be involved in inservice training through school visits:
they cannot fulfil their objective of quality improvement without
involvement in this crucial area;
in order for their support to be relevant to teachers, they surely need to
visit schools regularly and discuss with the staff;
visiting schools and training teachers is an important way of publicizing
the centre. Many centres that do not undertake these activities remain
unknown by the schools.
But such an involvement will not be without problems: first, the experiences of
most countries show that resource centres do not have the necessary staff nor the
finances to be able to regularly organize training or go out to schools. Second, for
such centres to undertake regular school visits, they will need to be plentiful,
something few countries can afford. Indeed, few countries can afford to staff such
a large number of centres with more than one or two professionals. The result will
be that when the resource person is in school, the centre is closed and of no use to
anyone. A solution might reside in attaching all resource centres to an existing
school, the core school of a cluster. However, in Nepal, where this was the case,
this did not solve the problem: the schools were not given control over the centre,
for reasons of security and accountability, and headteachers were reluctant to take
care of centres in the absence of the resource person.
2.

Should resource centres become part of

administration or remain as a separate structure?

the

educational

Resource centres in most countries were created within the framework of specific
projects. There are several good reasons to argue that they should be integrated
into the educational administration:
the findings of their work can be of use and interest to other actors within
the administration, in particular the supervisors. Relationships between
these different actors will become simpler and more direct when all
belong to the same public service;
such integration will lead to more co-ordination, for example between
resource persons and district supervisors, and therefore to less
confusion;

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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 the sustainability of these centres will improve if the official

administration takes over its management and becomes responsible for
their financing; and
when remaining as separate actors, the impact of resource persons on
teachers might be limited, because they lack the authority that is
attached to staff belonging to the Ministry.
Countries who attempted to integrate RCs and turned them into part of the
educational administration experienced some problems. Nepal attempted to
integrate the resource centre structure into its educational administration. Two
core problems were experienced:
by becoming part of the administration, resource persons are increasingly
used by that administration for tasks unrelated to their job, such as data
collection or resolution of administrative problems. They therefore
experience similar problems to the supervisors: a heavy workload and a
loss of concentration on what is the main reason for their existence,
namely support and advice; and
it also seems that teachers have a less collegial relationship with staff
belonging to the educational administration than with resource persons
whose linkage with the administration is weak and who therefore are not
in a position of authority over them.

An evaluation: a second-rate alternative?

The resource centre strategy has held many promises, but its actual performance
in most countries has been quite disappointing.

Question
What do you think can explain this unsatisfactory result?

The poor impact of resource centres on the performance of schools and teachers
has four main explanations:
1.

It seems that only a minority of teachers regularly visit the resource

centres. The distance between the school and the centre undoubtedly
plays a role, but other factors are equally important: the lack of time,
especially when teachers have more than one job or when centres are
only open during school hours; the fact that the materials within the
centres are not always what teachers are in need of, and finally the
fact that centres are just not sufficiently well known by teachers.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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Examples
An evaluation of different resource centre projects4 in India (Andra Pradesh), Kenya,
Nepal and Zambia showed that in all cases, perhaps with one exception, there were
extremely few drop-ins. For example, on average in Zambia only two teachers per
week visited the centres. In Nepal, participants on in-service courses were asked
how many of them come to the TRC and how often. Even those who lived within a
5 km radius, some even only 1 km away, said they had never been to the centre
before. At one centre, only five books had been borrowed in the last year, and those
were checked out to trainers.

2.

Teachers generally only visit centres when specific training courses

are organized. The knowledge gained through these courses, or the
materials developed, are seldom used in the schools. The same
evaluation referred to above concludes that materials rarely get to the
classrooms, and that it is even more rare for them to be used by
children. Teachers find it difficult to transmit whatever new
pedagogical methods they have been taught, to the classroom.

3.

This lack of impact on the classroom can be explained in part by the

fact that resource centres do not have sufficient staff to include
regular school visits among their main tasks. The continued
detachment of resource centres from schools and classrooms makes
it very difficult for such centres to have an impact on schools.

4.

A further constraint on the work of resource centres lies in the

conditions of many schools and the characteristics of many teachers.
These conditions and characteristics do not undergo much change,
merely because of the existence of resource centres. It is worth
pointing out that the environment in schools to which the teachers
return can be very poor. The schools ability and willingness to
welcome new ideas and resources cannot be taken for granted.

To summarize: the present model of resource centres starts from the belief that
schools will improve by providing teachers with a place to obtain or develop
teaching and learning materials, by offering them training from time to time, and
visiting them at times in schools. Where centres have remained remote from the
schools and the classroom, this has not succeeded. There is a need to think
creatively about new models that could help in overcoming this fundamental
weakness.

Some successful options

Arguably the main weakness of the resource centre model, presented above, lies in
the gap between its ambitions and its means. There seem, then, to be two ways
forward: on the one hand, to limit the ambitions, for instance by asking centres to
work with less schools or to focus on one single task; on the other hand, to give
them more means to function with. The few successful resource centre
programmes have done precisely that. The following paragraphs present three
alternatives.
4

Source: Knamiller, 1999.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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Alternative one: Restrict the number of schools and teachers per centre.
For resource centres to have a deep and consistent impact on the teachers, for
whom they are responsible, it is advisable that they work with those teachers in
their own classroom environment at regular intervals. A system of centres that are
located close to schools most in need of support and that have only a few schools
under their charge has proven to be effective. Such a model works particularly well
where school density is high and communications between schools and the centre
rather easy.
Example

The Teacher Advisory Centres (TAC) set up by the Aga Khan Foundation in
Mombasa, Kenya, serves a small number of schools and teachers, mainly in an
urban area, with well-staffed and well-resourced centres, to which the community
makes a clear commitment by providing facilities and care-taking. Each centre has a
Tutor and a Programme Officer (PO). Each TAC serves about 12 primary schools,
within 3-5 km of the centre. Its key feature is that the PO picks out a small number
of schools, three or four, from this cluster and works intensely with them for one
year, spending three days each week in these schools. On these days, the Tutor
visits the other schools in the cluster. The Programme Officers meet weekly to plan
and prepare in-service workshops in co-ordination with the Tutors. The intimate and
prolonged contact between a PO and a very few selected schools leads to a positive
impact in schools: it encourages better teacher attendance and advice is more
ready to hand. The model allows for maximum advisory support time in schools and
a minimum amount of time for teachers to be absent.

Alternative two: Assign only the task of providing resources to the centres
Asking that resource centres provide materials and resources to schools as well as
offer training has several implications: it is costly in terms of staff and finances,
and may lead to increased teacher absenteeism. Most countries cannot afford
such ambitious strategies. It is undoubtedly more feasible, in contexts of financial
scarcity, to ask centres to focus only on the task of providing and developing
teaching materials. At present, many schools function without such material
support, which makes the working environment de-motivating. The centre could
both act as a link between the administration and the schools to ensure that
materials reach schools, and develop its own support materials to be distributed to
schools and teachers.
Alternative three: Turn existing teacher training centres into teacher resource
centres
In many countries, in-service training is in the hands of a ministry department or an
institution, which is decentralized to regional or, in a few cases, district level. In
other words, within each region or district, a centre is in charge of in-service
teacher training. Rather than creating a separate structure, it could make more
sense to re-formulate the tasks of these existing centres and strengthen them with
some additional staff and funds. The advantages are evident: less worries about
co-ordination; economies of scale; and arguably more appropriate teacher training
5

Source: Knamiller, 1999.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

25

strategies. The disadvantages are equally clear: it is not simple to change the ethos
of an existing structure; and more fundamentally the distance between these
centres and schools remains difficult to bridge.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

26

Lessons learned

Question
The expected outcomes of this module were that you would gain an understanding of the
rationale that underlies the structure of the supervision service in different countries, and the
problems that countries experience in this regard. The module also discussed several strategies
to overcome these challenges. Summarize briefly what you learnt by studying this module. Does
it compare with what follows?

In many countries, the structure of the supervision service is complex: officers exist
at different levels and there are regularly different officers for different tasks (such
as control support; classroom supervision pedagogical guidance) and for
different levels. This complexity threatens the services effectiveness: the spread of
staff leads to small numbers of staff in each office, limiting their impact. In
addition, it could lead to an unclear division of tasks and to conflicting lines of
authority.
Equally preoccupying are the generally weak relationships between supervision
and the other services in charge of quality improvement, such as the teacher
training or curriculum development units. As a minimum, reports should be
exchanged between different units to improve on their co-ordination.
Countries have undertaken several structural changes in order to make the service
more effective and strengthen its impact on schools. While some countries have
streamlined the service through its centralization, many have attempted to bring
supervision closer to schools. They have done so in two ways:
by creating an additional supervisory layer under the one closest to the
schools; and
by organizing schools into clusters and around resource centres.
Neither strategy is without problems. The first one can lead to a more complex
structure with more officers and is therefore costly. The creation of resource
centres has not automatically led to stronger teacher supervision and support for
several reasons, including the fact that few teachers visit them and that what they
learn there is not always relevant to their classroom.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

27

Annex: Examples of resource centres in different

countries
In Burundi and Cambodia, most schools are satellite schools situated around a
core school. In Burundi, the core school director has the explicit task of supervising
classroom teaching in all the cluster schools. In Cambodia, this task is assigned to
a chairperson, who must also gather information to be submitted to the district
officer and who presides over cluster meetings, for example on teacher promotion.
In each cluster, there is a resource centre used as a training centre for working
teachers and as a meeting centre for principals and teachers. These centres store
all sorts of data and information gathered from all schools.
Malaysia is developing a rather intricate structure, with State Educational
Resource Centres at the state level, Teacher Activity Centres, catering for some 2050 schools, at the district level and School Resource Centres at each school. In
Lao, the setting up of a network of teacher upgrading centres in the most
disadvantaged provinces was accompanied by the creation of a team of primary
teacher educators and the promotion of a regular monitoring and supervision
system. District education officers and supervisors, based at the teacher upgrading
centre, were given specific supervision training. These supervisors have to visit
schools for 20 days per month and this regular supervision and support is seen as
a main reason for the programmes beneficial impact on the education system.
In Jamaica6, an interesting innovation uses teacher colleges as resource centres.
The Bethlehem and Mico Teachers colleges are linked to a cluster of primary and
secondary schools. The colleges provide leadership, technical support and training
to teachers and members of the school communities in the clusters, and in return
gain access to the schools with respect to the teaching practicum and action
research by staff and students.
In the Andra Pradesh Primary Education project in India7, the teacher centre
programme is actually a process where all teachers in a cluster who did the initial
12-day training in the six pedagogical principles of the project, meet for a day six
times a year. The purpose of these meetings is to consolidate and further develop
the principles through sharing ideas and practice. Physically, the teacher centre is
a room in one of the schools in the cluster.
In Nepal the resource centre system was introduced, in particular to improve the
support mechanism for primary school teachers. Resource centres are used, at the
same time, to deliver all educational inputs to teachers and schools: in-service
teacher training, refresher training, instructions and directions from the centre,
professional advice on teaching, educational materials, and so on. Through the
resource centres, teachers and headteachers of the cluster schools are brought
6

Source: Miller, 1999.

Source: Knamiller, 1999

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

28

together to discuss teaching and management-related issues and to share their

resources and experiences.
In Zambia, there are provincial and district resource centres. The provincial
centres are run by three subject co-ordinators. The district centres have a coordinator who is an experienced primary teacher. Each district has three subject
trainers. The centres have a role in a cascade system of in-service training and as
resource centres.
Botswana has 11 well-staffed Educational Resource Centres. These centres play
several roles: they offer the possibility to teachers to develop their own teaching
and learning resources, and the staff which forms part of the Ministrys In-Service
Department organizes regular training programmes, within the centre and in
schools. All centres have a documentation centre, several training rooms, a
workshop and boarding facilities. In addition, there are a few mobile resource
centres, i.e. a well-stocked bus, which regularly goes out to different schools to
allow the teachers to borrow and to develop useful materials.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

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References
IIEP; Grenada Ministry of Education. 2000. Institutional analysis of the Grenada
Ministry of Education.
Knamiller, G. (ed.). 1999. The Effectiveness of Teacher Resource Center
Strategy. London: Department for International Development.
Miller E. 1999. Teacher development in the Caribbean. Mimeo.
Warwick, D.P.; Reimers, F.; MacGinn, N. 1989. The implementation of
educational innovations. International Journal of Educational Development,
12 (4), p.297-307.

Module 3: The organization of supervision services

30

School supervision services exist in nearly all countries; they have played a key role in
the development of the public education system, by monitoring the quality of schools
and by supporting their improvement. However, in many countries, these services are
under increasingly heavy critique, because of their failure to have a positive impact on
quality of teaching and learning. This failure is, in part, the result of a strategic challenge:
the mandate of the service outweighs by far its resources, and is also caused by a series
of poor management and planning decisions.
Against this background, many countries have attempted to reform their supervision
system. These reforms are also inspired by the need to improve educational quality
and by the recent trend towards more school autonomy. Indeed, the ability of schools
to use their greater freedom effectively will depend to a large extent on the support
services on which they can rely, while supervision may be needed to guide them in their
decision-making and to monitor the use they make of their resources. While these
reforms have met with mixed success, their overall analysis allows us to gain profound
insight into what can be achieved in a specific context. This set of training modules takes
the reader through a systematic examination of the issues that a Ministry of Education,
intent on reforming its supervision service, will face.
The public, which will benefit most from these modules, are senior staff within ministries
who are directly involved in the organisation, planning and management of supervision
services, staff of research and training institutions who work on school supervision, and
practising supervisors.

The authors:
Anton de Grauwe is a Programme specialist at the IIEP. Gabriel Carron was until 1999
Senior Programme Coordinator in the same institute. Both coordinated between 1996
and 2004 an extensive research and training program on Reforming school supervision
and support for quality improvement.