Original article

Antecedents and development of the school inspection. Some qualities that the inspector must possess

0000-0003-4227-9022Héctor Diego Martínez Ochoa^{1  *}  , 0000-0002-5139-7269Juana Virgen Sánchez-Morales²  , 0000-0002-1451-0218Yanyorky Sánchez Pérez³ 

¹ICCP La Habana. Cuba.

²Universidad de Ciego de Ávila Máximo Gómez Báez, Cuba.

³Universidad de Guantánamo. Cuba.

ABSTRACT

The investigation has as objective to recognize the importance of the control in the educational processes, the school inspection as its expression form and the basic functions, to know how to demonstrate the most effective roads. It constitutes inevitable necessity to continue perfecting the school inspection with more scientific, participation, makes aware, commitment, responsibility. As methods of the investigation they have been carried out the historical-logical one, documental analysis, proves of acting pedagogic professional, the approach of experts was applied to validate the proposal of qualities that the school inspector must possess as a result theoretical and practical of the inquiry.

Key words: Control; School inspection; Advising; Educational processes; Inspector

Introduction

The research aims to recognize the importance of control in educational processes, school Supervision as its form of expression and the basic functions, in order to know how to demonstrate the most effective ways.

The government of Don Luis de las Casas, as representative of the "enlightened despotism" in the island, propitiates an opening and development of the educational field, which is expressed in the creation of the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País.

In his work: “School Supervision. Critical exposition of its process in Cuba and suggestions for a possible readaptation", Dr. Herminio Almendros refers: "On the emergence of the district supervisors where they are entrusted with the most direct service of the technical visit, they are the ones who are more in contact with the schools and resided in the same district". ^{Almendros (1952}).

It can be seen immediately how the traditional supervisory function of the inspectorate is maintained, without forgetting, of course, traditionalism and the use of verbal methods in teaching, with a teacher with a total absence of independence, creativity and protagonism of each factor involved in the learning process.

It is in 1842 that the Spanish government dictated the first school law in Cuba; the royal order that communicates to the Captain General the content of the law expresses. ^{Guerra (1954}) expresses the following:

"First, that the general direction of public instruction be entrusted immediately to the care of a Board of supervisors, composed of individuals of recognized literary enlightenment, of good services and worthy of this trust".

In accordance with the provisions of this Royal Order dated December 29, 1841, the Commission of Public Instruction and the General Inspectorate of Studies were created. The supervison of studies created by the Colonial Government then assumed such powers and provincial and local commissions in charge of supervison were established. Thus, the total centralization sought by the Spanish government had been achieved.

Although it was intended to give the supervision a more guiding character, the development of the function still retained an supervision spirit based on inherited patterns. It was not until 1962 that the inspection of elementary education was turned around through Resolution 1129, which restructured the supervision system once again. Here, inspectors are assigned the following functions, among others: ^{Stuart (2020}).

• To guide and improve the teacher's professional development by means of technical assistance, through periodic group meetings, classroom visits, the organization of study commissions and improvement courses.

• Evaluate the work of the teacher and the school principal.

• Supervise the efficiency and performance of the school task in all aspects that influence the process.

• Stimulate the teacher's daily work and effort.

• To control and promote school work through the analysis of statistical data. To promote group work.

• Coordinate the technical work of teachers and school principals.

Development

The conception of supervision as advisory is compatible with the development of its control function. The development of both functions (control and assessment) of inspection can be conceived harmoniously with the evaluation function, control guarantees compliance and improvement of the system, establishes goals, there is correction and adjustments, more control is appreciated as vigilance and as assessment, through evaluation, deviations are detected and decisions are taken, consensus is reached on quality judgments and the teaching activity is regulated and improved, with assessment, symmetry is achieved in working relationships of cooperation, integration, help, training, problem solving, participation commitments are achieved, greater communication, diagnostic techniques are used, needs, collective participation in raising the quality of the educational system is achieved. ^{Martínez (2020}).

To assess the evolution of school supervision in Cuba and especially to know the development of its advisory function, the management of the authors has not been easy, because unfortunately the bibliography is scarce, only a few authors have addressed the subject, mainly in the republican stage.

The revolutionary stage unfortunately lacks organized documentation that would allow us to follow the progress of the supervisory function. ^{Martínez (2020}).

The research methods used were theoretical methods such as historical-logical, documentary analysis, to determine from the historical inquiry the tendencies of the development of school supervision in Cuba, as well as the study of documents elaborated by experts and the systematically established norms; In the empirical methods, the pedagogical professional performance test was used to inquire with school directors and supervisors about the way of acting in the activity of school supervision and to determine the typical qualities of their professional performance; finally, the experts' criterion was applied to validate the proposal of qualities that the contemporary school supervisor must possess, in correspondence with the requirements of the Third Improvement of the National Education System.

When analyzing the antecedents of the study of school supervision in Cuba, it is necessary to look for Martín Rodríguez Vivanco as a reference of first order. It is he who studies in his work: " School Inspection Techniques " (School Inspection Techniques), whose first edition was published in 1941, where he makes a historical analysis of the school supervision process in our country that seems to be the starting point for all those who have subsequently approached the subject (^{Rodríguez, 1941}).

Although his study is brief, since he devotes only one chapter to it, it has become a classic of obligatory consultation, due to the valuable contributions it offers to the supervision practice.

For Martín Rodríguez Vivanco, supervisors proceed in their counseling activities as if all teachers were the same, or responded to the same interests and needs, so he considers that it would be feasible to find a form of flexibility that would allow a more accurate application of the suggestions and recommendations of the supervision to each particular case, at least, It is therefore important that the pedagogical diagnosis be applied not only to students, but also to teachers, administrators and other factors involved in the educational teaching process, in order to adopt methods, procedures and activities according to individual interests and needs.

If school inspectors adequately apply these recommendations, efficient counseling and continuous improvement of teachers, managers and the institution in general can be promoted, and the author considers that these considerations are fully valid.

Vivanco, in the aforementioned work states: "according to the method used for the presentation of ideas, school supervision techniques have been classified into three groups: 1- Verbal, 2- Observation, 3- Direct participation in teaching". ^{Rodríguez (1941}).

At present, the Cuban educational system is engaged in a process of profound transformations in order to achieve greater quality in the teaching and educational process, management styles, school life, and relations with the family and the community increasingly acquire a democratic, flexible and creative character, with the maxim that our students learn more every day, ensuring that the student, within the teaching process and in all his school and social activity, is active, reflective, critical and independent, being more and more protagonist in his performance.

It must foster feelings of love and respect in its different manifestations towards the Homeland, towards their family, towards their school and classmates, towards nature, among others, and qualities such as being responsible, industrious, honest and supportive, acquiring or reaffirming their habits of individual and collective hygiene and all those that favor their health and that, in a general sense, prepare them for life in our socialist society.

To achieve these purposes our inspectors, managers and teachers must be scientifically prepared and contribute to the integral formation of the schoolchildren's personality, encouraging from the early grades the internalization of knowledge and value orientations that are gradually reflected in their feelings, ways of thinking and behavior, in accordance with the system of values and ideals of the Cuban socialist revolution. ^{Martínez (2018}).

The supervision is the lever of school advancement, stimulates the directors to the fulfillment of duty, encourages and comforts them, points out what they need to correct, guides them in the new pedagogical methods and procedures, so that the educational direction and the advisory function acquire all the value it deserves.

The school supervisor is a teacher friend and protector of the other educators, he is the one who must help the directors in the selection of the most recommendable methods in the different types of direction; because many times the disorientation is the cause of the failure of the directors. In order for the inspector to fulfill his task, he needs a solid academic and professional instruction, school experience, moral character, impeccable social culture and a lot of enthusiasm, activity and pedagogical vocation. His main function is to assist, stimulate and guide the principal, and most of his time should be devoted to them.

In thesis ^{Stuart's (2020}) there is valuable information on the supervision reforms in Cuba, he makes reference to the characteristics of this important activity in the Cuba of the Mediatized Republic and to the important Regulation of Public Instruction of 1922, and the following Regulation of October 28, 1946, where the classification of supervisors and the differentiation of urban and rural supervision is regulated, bringing with it perhaps in 1936 the so-called Rural Civic-Military Schools; refers to Circular No. 70 of May 11, 1914, where he explains the duties and functions of district supervisors and where the role of the supervisor is overemphasized towards the teacher and as a goal the improvement of teaching, always with a prism of correcting defects, therefore his thesis lacks an analysis of the steps or aspects that the advisory function in school supervision should take, does not explain the importance of the commitment of the teacher in achieving the proposed transformations, in his analysis, he hierarchizes the teacher and not the manager.

As can be seen from the analysis of these authors, although there have been attempts in the country since the republican era to give supervision a less controlling cut and proposals have been formulated to ensure that assessment plays its developmental role, in practice, control has continued to predominate as an element sometimes exclusive to supervision. It is for this reason that the present research intends to delve into the activity of school inspection, to know its essence and to project actions that favor its improvement.

According to ^{Soler (1993}) in his book: “Fundamentals of Educational Supervision ", p. 28 refers:

"The supervisor must develop different tasks related to the analysis of needs, knowledge of reality, collection and transmission of information, forecasting of results, guidance, tasks that globally make up the control function. To achieve this purpose, the supervisor has to develop different tasks related to the analysis of needs, knowledge of the reality, collection and transmission of information, forecasting the results of the decision, guidance, tasks that globally make up the control function, at least in the sense of external control of a system".

The authors consider that, as theoretical underpinnings of school inspection and its advisory function, we have the following:

• In the pedagogical sciences, especially in the Scientific Educational Management, communicative processes are developed, materialized in the school inspection in general and in the advisory function in particular, which constitutes a complex and concrete historical social process in which the transmission and assimilation of the cultural inheritance accumulated by the human being takes place.

• School inspection, as a component of school systems, has to be defined considering the environment in which it is constituted and in which it is exercised, in order to provide the service entrusted to it: to guarantee the quality of education.

• The advisory function in school inspection is only effective if there is the capacity to develop it on the basis of good human relations, achieving coherent communication between school administrators and inspectors, guaranteeing the training of the person being advised so that he/she can face new challenges.

• In order to achieve counseling, at least four requirements must be met: the conscious participation of teachers, managers and school inspectors; autonomy, seen from anthropological, curricular, technological and institutional perspectives; the search for quality, achieving a collective culture for educational excellence; institutional autonomy, the ability to organize, control and evaluate their own performance.

As methodological underpinnings of school inspection and its advisory function, the authors consider the following:

• It is essential to develop a conception for school supervision based on democratic, open models, where motivation and commitment are developed, leading to transformational supervision.

• The diversity of models of education systems has a direct effect on the organizational model of school supervision. Depending on this diversity, school supervision models consolidate towards one of the classic types: centralized, partially centralized or decentralized.

• Mastering the distinctive features of the traditional style of school supervision while hierarchizing in its application the contemporary style, which corresponds to the creative phase of inspection.

• The evaluation function of school supervision, in the new circumstances, acquires a strategic dimension, including institutional self-evaluation.

• Visits remain the essential method of school supervision, where the conception must be more democratic and participatory.

With these theoretical and methodological underpinnings and a clear conception of the relationship between personality and communication, the school supervisor's advisory function can be successfully carried out. The School Supervision Regulation considers class visits as procedures, the author considers that they should be considered as a method, despite the fact that both terms are considered synonyms, through class visits the school supervisor and the director analyze how the teaching and educational process is developing, and the goals and ways for their solution can be traced.

In addition to these fundamentals, it is necessary to take into account what is expressed by ^{Cuesta Santos (2001}) when he states: "Today's successful business world is one of cognitive and emotional breadth, of broad profile or polyvalence or multi-skills and what is equally important, of constantly practicing such a profile".

If adjusted to the educational sphere it would be said that the manager to achieve a culture of success, must first be committed and convinced with the change, which begins with training, with advice, with sufficient information, vital for decision making, there is no other intelligent and effective alternative at the same time, with the optimal use of resources. ^{García (2019}).

For all educational managers, the first line of objective must be to work in order to improve their professional performance, to achieve quality, with sufficient perseverance, to know how to make use of criticism and self-criticism, to make use of a strategy framed in our ideological principles, to know how to make the right decisions with the premise of solving the contradiction between unity and diversity, massiveness and quality: unity and diversity, massiveness and quality, for which an ethic is required to determine the way to act with enough homogeneity, to recognize and encourage men and women to give what they should and can; we must seek a timely, logical and proportional combination between the different sociological, psychological, educational, economic and ideological factors that achieve that man acts and seeks his best professional and human performance in his work, with his family, with society and with himself.

People are not only competent from a cognitive point of view, but also emotionally, and as a biological, psychological and social whole, the person is competent or not in certain activities of teaching performance.

The future of successful performance of managers will have to do more and more with the holistic and at the same time personalized conception implied in that successful performance by including knowledge and skills to do the job (know how to do); and also attitudes, values and personal traits linked to good performance (willingness to do).

Both the school supervisor and the officials, who visit the manager guide, advise and support him/her in the achievement of the objectives. Every manager must become a leader of his staff, turning his educational center into a high performance organization, where quality in everything, competitiveness, effectiveness and efficiency are the supreme goals of all its workers.

The Cuban ideology is socialist and based on the ideas of Martí, Maceo, Agramonte, Mella, Camilo, Ernesto Guevara, as well as the most advanced ideas of thousands of genuine Cubans, with Fidel Castro and the meridian leadership of Díaz-Canel Bemúdez.

That socialist ideology is manifested in the educational centers through the way it is exercised and how to organize, direct and supervise the educational institution.

Without leaders convinced of the need for continuous improvement, of change to be more efficient, of innovation to grow and of the need to make a greater contribution to society, the higher goals that the people expect from the Cuban school will not be achieved. It is necessary to involve all members of society in the interest of perfecting socialism, pedagogy and achieving a high performance model of the school and the Cuban educator.

The Cuban manager, the school supervisor, officials, all must master what it is to manage, which is an act that is summarized in the action of getting other people to do something in order to obtain certain objectives or results that we had proposed, with the intervention of human, material and financial resources, which in Cuba enhances the moral strength of the manager in his mandate, it is necessary to convince people and advise them to achieve the desired objectives, to motivate them to consciously comply with the task. To achieve a planned, organized, conscious action.

In educational institutions, the formation and development of a leader who is and acts in a natural way must be achieved, the leader is therefore a person with superior human, political and moral qualities who manages to develop a decisive influence on the members of the group, so that all share the responsibilities for the successes and failures of this, what is intended is to achieve the convergence between boss and leader in the same person, and thus achieve greater success in educational management, that is to say, to achieve educational excellence.

Educational managers, taking into account their professional experience, their pedagogical and general training, as well as the characteristics of the personnel they manage, must use a style that will lead them to the achievement of the proposed objectives. In order to achieve them, they must know the bases of the science of scientific management.

The contemporary style of school supervision corresponds to the last phase of its historical evolution, the creative school inspection, focused on the development of the talent and potential of managers and teachers, where school supervision has to be weighted, ^{Diardes (2022}).

The authors add to what has been expressed by the researchers that the advisory function should prepare the educational administrator to achieve the change and results expected of him/her and his/her group with his/her own potentialities.

It is necessary to point out that in view of the challenges faced by school supervision and the changes in educational systems, the content of its functions is re-conceptualized to include the evaluation of the quality of education and of its own functioning, as well as to contribute to the cardinal purpose of qualitatively improving the performance of the educational system.

The new style should be characterized by being more participatory, democratic and open where the school supervisor has a leading role, making him/her a manager of quality, driver and conductor of innovations and promoter of the success of educational changes. ^{Rodríguez (2016}).

At this moment, the III Improvement of the National Education System is being developed, it begins in 2010 with the firm purpose of consolidating the quality of learning, for this purpose it is necessary to develop a methodological work system of a differentiating character, to achieve a developmental class, encourage individual and collective study with exercises for life, with distractors, utilitarian, perfecting the system of family education, strengthening the quality of teaching, methodological preparation and individualized improvement, where the class is developmental in search of learning at higher levels, with a heuristic bias, problematizing and for life.

It is vital to develop certain qualities that the school supervisor must possess in order to be able to carry out his or her activity effectively, a model of professional performance of the school supervisor has been validated in the practice of the supervision activity for many years, the teaching given in Cuba and Venezuela in the Master's Degree in Educational Supervision developed in six editions up to the present time.

In this same direction, it is necessary to work to achieve relationships of camaraderie and understanding among the supervisors, taking into account the aspects mentioned above. For its determination, the criteria expressed by a wide and diverse sample that included school supervisors, principals, officials, management staff and teachers were taken into account, all of them agreeing that these qualities must make up the model of the contemporary school supervisor.

Qualities related to the personal traits of the school supervisor: ^{Martínez (2009}).

Fairness and honesty, sincerity and modesty, intelligence, particularly expressed in their ability to observe, analyze, discern, assess, judge, demonstrate; equanimity and moderation;

perseverance; respect; discipline for self-improvement; social and professional commitment; concern for keeping up to date.

Qualities associated with the professional preparation of the school supervisor:

Knowledge and mastery of the activity subject to supervision; professional training of the supervisor, both with regard to school and teaching activity and to the school supervision activity itself; professional experience, capable of covering the performance of teaching management functions and within the framework of the supervision itself; mastery of the particularities of Neurosciences to promote learning; mastery of the particularities of the curricula, the particularities and potentialities of the learner's age, learning styles, didactic impulses and attention to special educational needs.

Qualities related to the circumstantial particularities in which the school supervision activity is carried out:

Ability to demonstrate, persuade and convince; flexibility; tact; to be an example of a pedagogue; adequate communication where assertiveness prevails; learning to teach, to do, to live together, to be, to create.

It is assumed that the supervisor must have pedagogical experience, mastery of the activity he/she performs, an integral general culture, be foresighted, know how to scrutinize the problems and select the fundamental from the secondary, be an example as a person and educator, link exigency with demonstration, with help, be able to prepare the person being assessed to act in a creative, independent way, with intelligence in the solution of the problems, contribute to stimulate the love for our profession.

Above all, to have the idea and conviction that their work is aimed at contributing to improve the professional performance of teachers, educational managers and the school supervisors team itself, with the firm purpose of consolidating the conquests achieved in Cuban Education and its Socialist Revolution.

Conclusions

School supervision in Cuba has come a long way since the Foundation of the Society of Friends of the Country, initially with a supervisory, authoritarian bias, with a certain distrust of the work of teachers, it has gone through a number of regulations and modes of action in an attempt to improve the activity, with the Third Improvement, democratic and participatory styles are incorporated, assertive communication and demonstrate how to do without ignoring the rigor of control, based on the theoretical and methodological conceptions of the Scientific Educational Management are weighted.

The school supervision, its basic functions of control, evaluation and assessment have presented certain difficulties. Control has been weighted over the rest of the functions, with an authoritarian bias, without the necessary levels of assistance required by the visited, providing the possibility of their own creativity, responsibility, as advantages has raised the academic and scientific level of teachers, managers and school supervisors demonstrated in the professional and human performance and the quality of learning itself.

The proposal of the qualities that the school supervisor must possess in order to conform a model of performance, is based on the Sociology of Education, the Scientific Educational Management, the laws of Educational Management, the basic principles of control, the theory of Leontiev's activity, the psychological, pedagogical and pedagogical precepts, and the theory of the activity of Leontiev, the psychological, pedagogical and didactic precepts of education, in the conceptions of the most advanced Cuban, Latin American and world pedagogues who have contributed their best conceptions such as Félix Varela, José Martí, Fidel Castro, as well as the precepts disclosed by the current Cuban President Díaz-Canel.

The proposal has been approved and validated by specialists, experts, educational managers, school supervisors, Cuban and Venezuelan students of the Master's Degree in Educational Supervision from 2008 to the present for six editions. It has been validated by the faculty of doctors of our teaching staff from all over the island of Cuba, including the experts of the team of methodologists-supervisors of the Directorate of Inspection of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Cuba, as well as the experts of the Directorate of Educational Supervision of the Ministry of Popular Power for Education, MPPE of the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, including the comrades of the Integral Agreement of Cuba-Venezuela Collaboration in more than 12 states of the 24 that Venezuela has.

Referencias bibliográficas

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Received: April 12, 2023; Revised: May 10, 2023; Accepted: July 18, 2023

^*Autor for the correspondence:[e-mail]