The Academic Supervision of the School Principal: A Case in Indonesia

Abstract

A principal plays a vital role in managing school and improving teacher's quality teaching instruction in the class. This study explores the academic supervision of the principal in helping teachers improve their teaching profession to enhance students’ learning outcomes. Secondary data were collected from the document of basic data of education of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The online survey and FGD as well as interview are used to collect data about the number of principal's monitoring teacher’s teaching activities in the class, the implementation of the principals’ supervision, and the improvement of teaching activities after supervision. The descriptive technique is used to analyse the data (Strauss dan Corbin, 1990, p. 62). The study reveals that the supervision follows the procedure (planning, implementation, reporting, and follow-up results of the supervision) as a guide of monitoring. However, in the implementation, all processes in the guidelines are not appropriately followed, due to the heavy burden of the principal’s school task.

Improvement of principals’ supervision competence through accompaniment in principal working groups

“…This is carried out so that they focus more on observing the teacher in the learning process when supervising class visits. The class visit technique makes it easier for principals to get information about the strengths and weaknesses of teachers when teaching (Fahmi et al, 2019;Honig & Rainey, 2019;Noor et al, 2020). The principals' direct observation of the learning process makes it easier for them to improve the learning process (Azainil et al, 2021;Hoque et al, 2020;Wiyono et al, 2020).…”

“…The principals said that implementing the PWG programme had provided inspiration and understanding in implementing the academic supervision programme. The series of academic supervision activities consist of 1) planning academic supervision programmes, 2) carrying out academic supervision of teachers using appropriate supervision approaches and techniques and 3) following-up on academic supervision activities in order to increase teacher professionalism (Honig & Rainey, 2019;Noor et al, 2020). The principals also said that they increased their knowledge, insight and competence regarding academic supervision after participating in the PWG activity.…”

“…At this meeting, they determined the goals, targets to be achieved and created a team of assistant principals to implement academic supervision. The implementation of supervision could be more directed and effective if it refers to the planning made professionally (Honig & Rainey, 2019;Hvidston et al, 2018;Noor et al, 2020). Next, the principal held a meeting with the teachers to socialise the academic supervision programme.…”

Principal's Leadership Strategy in the Development of Teacher Professionalism

“…To improve the quality of the learning process, the principal always asks the teacher for follow-up results from the implementation of supervision. This effort is quite good, because in reality there are still many schools that have not followed up on the results of supervision, both internally and externally (Marshall, 2005;Noor & Sofyaningrum, 2020).…”

The Effect of Academic Supervision in Improving Teacher Performance: A Literature Review

“…Not only head master as supervisor, but it requires the responsibility of academic supervision of the vice principal. The responsibility of academic supervision of the vice principals is to focus on the process of supervising teachers in teaching, how the teaching media is, how learning is carried out and providing solutions to the problems faced [2], [43], [40]. In this process, how do teachers manage time, use teaching materials and practices that are expected to improve student academic achievement.…”