The dynamics of school supervision in Ghana and the work of school improvement support officers

School supervision is a tool that has been utilized over the years by the Ghana Education Service to enhance teaching and learning, as well as improve overall students’ academic performance. Although school supervision remains relevant to schools, the level of improvement stakeholders expect as a result of the supervisory activities seems limited. The study aimed at exploring how school improvement support officers work to support schools to promote improvement. This qualitative exploratory study involved one-on-one interviews with school improvement support officers who were purposively selected from two districts in the southern part of Ghana. The findings showed that school improvement support officers perform numerous useful functions intended to bring improvement to schools; however, several challenges affect the effectiveness of their work. The study concludes that school supervision is useful, so efforts must be made by school leaders to find better ways to address the challenges so as to bring improvement to schools.