Practices of Instructional Supervision in Secondary Schools of Bale Zone of Oromia Region
School-based instructional supervision is focusing mainly on the total school improvement and quality of education provided for the learner. Therefore, the main purpose of the study was to investigate the practices of instructional supervision in secondary schools of Bale Zone. Descriptive survey design was employed to gather from nine randomly selected secondary schools in Bale Zone. Out of the total population of respondents,  182(52.8%) teachers were selected using systematic random sampling technique. In addition out of 81 instructional supervision committee members, 54(66.7%) were included in the study by simple random sampling techniques. Nine principals and, eight secondary school supervisors were participated by purposive sampling. Questionnaire and interview were employed as instrument of data collection. Frequency, percentage, and chi-square analysis were employed to analyze quantitative data.  Qualitative data was thematically categorized and narrated for the purpose of triangulation. The results of the study revealed that the practices of instructional supervision approaches and their contribution to teachers’ professional development were low. Instructional supervisors were found to get involved in the difficult task of supervision without having prior trainings, and their contributions were also unsatisfactory. There were also lack of trained supervisors, manuals, training, shortage of budget, and high teaching load of supervisors hinder proper implementation of instructional supervision. As a result, awareness creation should be given to instructional supervisors and teachers through seminars, workshops and discussion forums in order to bring professional growth of teachers and improving their instructional practices. Moreover, suggestions should be forwarded by concerned bodies so as to solve the factors that hinder proper implementation of instructional supervision practices. Keywords: Continuous professional development, Instructional Supervision, Principal, secondary school teachers DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-7-01 Publication date: March 31 st 2020