Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the process of teacher inspection in two
public schools in Beirut. Four semi-structured interviews were conducted with two
science inspectors and two public-school principals. Open-ended questionnaires were
distributed to 33 public-school secondary teachers. Participants were required to answer
the same questions regarding several aspects of the inspection process: notification,
school selection, general and subject-specific inspection, duration and time, frequency,
feedback, and penalties. Results showed that inspection played a significant role in
guiding teachers and monitoring their performance. However, academic qualifications
and number of years of experience for selection to inspectorial positions were reduced
over time. The number of subject-specific inspectors was found to be very low and there
was a need for increasing the number of inspectorial visits. Teacher evaluation was not
based on specific evaluation rubrics and was prone to be subjective. Feedback to teachers
addressed their strengths and weaknesses and elicited the corresponding
recommendations or penalties in case of violations. However, suggestions by the
Education Inspectorate were not mandatory to the MinistJy of Education. The inspection
process in Lebanon was not associated with promotion or salary increments and therefore
it was not an incentive to high performing teachers and did not produce action plans for
improvement.
