Language and Communication: Effective Tools for Educational Supervision and Inspection in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper highlights the role of language and communication in removing barriers, building bridges and promoting behaviours targeted at achieving already set minimum standards, guaranteeing quality assurance and supporting management functions of supervision and inspection in education in Nigeria. The paper recognizes that the stressful life and traumatic experiences teachers go through during supervision and inspection and government's inactions and reluctance to act on supervision and inspection reports which consequently undermine general conditions in the education industry owe their origins to ineffective articulation and conceptualization of ideas and concepts and their eventual communication by supervisors and inspectors. As measures to overcome this unfortunate development, the paper recommends among other things that unlike the present practice where "Godfatherism" is the basis of appointing supervisors and inspectors, ability to effectively communicate should be the yardstick for becoming a supervisor and inspector and basic rudiments of communication should take centre stage in the training of teachers who naturally are potential supervisors and inspectors.