Management of instructional time in the public junior secondary schools in the Cape Coast municipality

Abstract

With the reduction in the number of years spent at the basic school level from the previous ten years to nine years it has often been argued that the short fall of one academic year represents a very significant loss of instructional time. The perceived loss and how to offset this is the focus of the study. The study was based on research questions on lesson planning and its usage, supervision in schools as well as interferences and interruptions during instructional time. A review of the relevant literature was done to provide a point of departure for the study. The study was conducted in the 44 Junior Secondary Schools within the Cape Coast Municipality. The respondents were the 44 headteachers and 174 teachers. By means of interviews, questionnaire and onthe-sport observations, data were collected, tabulated and processed for analysis. The findings were ineffective external supervision on instructional time use, interferences and interruptions of activities held during instructional time, the preparation of teaching notes and the time being wasted on the changing over from one lesson to another. The analysis leads to the conclusion that in-service training on lesson planning especially with regard to breaking down the lesson into time-referenced, smaller manageable units from the introduction to the conclusion and evaluation is needed. The study also argues for another look at the existing official timetable to determine the various ways through which instructional time is lost, albeit inadvertently. The need for regular external monitoring of instructional time use in schools by the educational authorities is also recommended. There is also the need for further research into instructional time use at the JSS level in Ghana with a view to eliminating or at least minimizing waste in instructional time use at this level.