COMMONWEALTH REGIONAL TRAINING COURSESFOR EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATORS

AND SUPERVISORSThe University of Nairobi is hosting a three-month course from January .L'[th to April

15th, 1977 for Educational Administrators and Supervisors from all the Commonwealthcountries in Africa. In the past, he further pointed out, a

mistake made in the field of in-service edu-cation in many countries had been that mostof the attention was paid to the education ofteachers. The education of school adminis-trators and supervisors was generally ignoredor provided through very short nationallyorganized courses. Experience, he went on,was left to be the best teacher of educationaladministrators and supervisors. The result hasbeen that due to their lack of adequate andup-to-date understanding of the concept,need, aims and objectives, methods, etc.of education, they have often createddifficulties in the way of their teachersin implementing the new ideas gained duringtheir pre-service and in-service education,and consequently, much of the time, moneyand energy spent on the education ofteachers were wasted.

In order to rectify this situation and alsoin view of the important role educationplayed in the realization of national aims andobjectives and socio-economic developmentof the developing countries, he said, boththe Fifth Commonwealth Education Confe-rence in Australia (1971) which the Ministerhimself attended and the Specialist Confe-rence on Teacher Education in ChangingSociety held at Nairobi in 1973, underlinedthe Universities of Malaya in Malaysia andJamaica in the West Indies,

The meeting had strongly endorsed theneed for establishing regional trainin{centresin the Commonwealth. With an over-ridingconcern that courses should be practical intheir orientation, and relevant to the needsof participating countries, agreement wasreached on the content and learning methodsto be used and on the principles applicableto the administration and development ofregional courses for educational supervisors.The planning committee provided a baseand rationale of training which were expectedto be adopted in all the regions of theCommonwealth. The curriculum for thethree-month course the Minister was opening

The course which is jointly financed bythe Commonwealth Secretariat Educationand the Kenya Ministry of Education wasfor some 30 participants chosen fromDistrict Education Officers, Inspectors ofSchools, Secondary School Headteachers andPrincipals of Teachers' Colleges in themember countries of the Commonwealthin Africa. The course aimed at bringing thefundamental professional knowledge of theparticipants up-to-date, so that they couldfurther develop their understanding of theissue and techniques involved in effectiveteaching-learning process. It was also aimedat guiding the participants on how toimprove their own general education andexpose them to skills and techniques foreffective school administration and super-vision. It attempted to rdevelop adequateprofessional competence in the participants,so that they would act as resource persons intheir own countries and organize similarin-service courses for their colleagues andsurbordinates.

The course was officially opened by theMinister of Education Mr. Taitta Towet on17th January, 1977 at 10.00 a.m. in theFaculty of Education Lecture TheatreII. In his opening speech the Minister saidhe hoped that at the end of their three-month course they would no doubt comeout with concrete suggestions on how bestthe education institutions may be tackeledand how best to improve the curricula.

The Minister pointed out that experiencehad proved that in the organization of in-service education programme priorityshould be given to the inservice- educationof key personnel. The' encouragement forand guidance in the in-service educationshould come from the senior officers incharge of school administration and super-vision and directly responsible for thequalitative improvement of school educati-on.

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was prepared on the basis of the recomme-ndations of the planning committee.

The Minister noted that in some countries,Universities and teachers colleges offeredcourses in educational administration, butmost of these catered mainly for pre-service entry and they provided longercourses than was envisaged for Commo~-wealth regional training centre. The commi-ttee agreed that the need for in-servicecourses of 2-9 months was far greater thanthe provision available in any countryrepresented. It seemed likely that the parti-cipants who already faced the responsibi-lities of running a college, a school, ora school district would gain more from apractical course in this area than didpre-service entrants who were not i~~edia-tely faced with the same tasks. Participantsin a regional course would also have theadditional advantage of sharing the expe-rience of others from other countries.

The target groups for the three monthscourse he· said were not those at thepinnacle in their ministries of educationlike permanent secretaries and the P_E.Oo's,who would perhaps be too busy to leavetheir work for any period of time, Ithad been agreed that those to be chosenwould be lower down the echelon butwould still be people who were in a positionto influence policy and to ensure that theschools would benefit from the training.

The Minister continued and noted thatit had been found desirable to train parti-cipants from different levels in the samecountry so that when they return homethey could work as a team and theirinfluence might be more effective. If ahead-teacher, senior education officer anda director took part together in a coursethey would form a core of people withexperience in this kind of train.ing, ~howould then intiate national training scien-ces. He hoped that those who had cometo this first course would leave with enoughknowledge, skill and competence to dowhat the committee envisaged,

The Minister noted that the course wasan experimental one. He, however, hopedthat it would be a success so that a perma-nent centre could be justified. The prepa-ration of the detailed syllabus and organi-zation of the course had been done bythe Faculty of Education and particularyby the department of Educational Admini-

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stration, Planning and Curriculum Develop-ment in complete consultation with theMini;try of Education, the University Admi-nistation and the Commonwealth Secreta-riat. It was therefore hoped that by theend of the three months, useful experiencewould have been gained to apply it infuture courses in permanent regional cen-tres in the Commonwealth countries.

Even though it had been found necessaryto limit the number of participants to 30only, the Minister hoped that in future,doors would be open to many more asmore and more courses of the kind gotorganized. .

Prior to making his speech and declarmgthe course open, the Minister, and thecourse participants who were gathered therefor the official opening, were welcomed bythe Dean of the Faculty of Education,Professor F.M.M.O. Okatcha, who wasdeputising for the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. J.N.Karanja. But before inviting the Minister toaddress the participants, Professor Okatcha,as an illustration of the kinds of problemsschool administrators were faced with saidthe following.

"One morning a fourteen year old se-condary school pupil reported late for hisclass. Because of this lateness, the teacherpunished the pupil. At about 6 p.m. whenthe boy had returned home, he saw theteacher on a bicycle. The boy took somestones and started throwing at the teacher.The following morning when the boy wentto school he was punished by the teacherfor having thrown stones at home. What isnot clear here is whether or not it is aproper educational practice for teachers topunish pupils for offences committed a(te:school hours. Should this be the responsibi-lity of the parents or the heads of schools?"To conclude, he hoped that the participantsto the course would be able to diSCUSSthis issue and other related issues ineducational administration and supervision.

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The Minister for Education Mr Taitta Toweett M.P., makes his address at the official opening of theCommonwealth Secretariat Seminar held at the University of Nairobi. Listening attentivelyare the Director of Education Division in the Commonwealth Secretariat, Dr. Cockey (2nd Right),Dean of Faculty of Education, Prof. F.M. Okatcha, and the Director of Bureau of Educa-tional Research in the Faculty of Education, Dr. A. Maleche (farthest back) and Mr Ngunzefrom the Ministry of Education.

The Minister of Education, MrTaitta Toweett happily declaresthe seminar open. Also in thepicture is the Director of Edu-cation in the CommonwealthSecretariat.

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A section of the participants and other guests who attended the opening ceremony listenattentively as the Minister of Education makes his opening address.