Availability and Utilisation of E-Supervision of Instruction Facilities in the Post-COVID-19 Era

As a result of rapid globalisation, there have been some fundamental changes in education due to the rapid changes in knowledge, concepts, technology, and philosophy. COVID-19 has had devastating effects on the education sector. In Nigerian schools, supervisors, teachers, and students have always been required to interact face-to-face before this pandemic. This has led to using electronic facilities to carry out the instruction. Since supervision of instruction plays a vital role in the effective learning outcome. The study, therefore, seeks to investigate the availability and utilisation of electronic supervision of the instruction facilities after the COVID-19 era. A survey design was used to describe the state of e-supervision of instruction using a random sampling technique to select 226 participants from private secondary schools in Education District III, Lagos State. Descriptive and inferential statistics were adopted to establish the availability and utilisation of e-supervision instructions in the post-COVID-19 era. Most of the samples studied (principals, vice-principals, and teachers) demonstrated high levels of access to various tools (both synchronous and asynchronous) used for e-supervision. Effective supervision of teaching and learning will certainly occur in schools with the availability of these tools since COVID-19 has taught teachers how to continue their professions without being hindered by the surge in technology.


INTRODUCTION
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 caused a massive disruption in the social structures of many countries worldwide, leading to closures of schools, offices, and businesses and total lockdown in some countries. Several countries have been affected by the pandemic outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China. 1 Among many other institutions, schools were instructed to follow social situation, on 19th March, the Ministry of Education of Nigeria announced a temporary suspension of school activities, effective 23rd March, to combat the spread of the coronavirus. 13 This raised the following questions: Do Nigerian schools (private or public) have the technology to accommodate the approximately 46 million students affected?" Do Nigerian households have the resources to accommodate children who need to learn remotely? What facilities and skills do teachers and instructional supervisors have to deliver live lessons or record massive open online courses? 14 The extent of private involvement in Nigeria's education system has been demonstrated through research. There are (71%) more privately-owned secondary schools than government-owned ones. 15 In general, 75% of school children are enrolled in private schools. Privately owned schools were considerably more effective than government-run schools in terms of instructional activity. 16 In most cases, private schools possessed more educational resources than public schools. 17 Private schools have been the most patronised in Nigeria, especially in Lagos State, and profit-oriented institutions will not hesitate to make their schools run in the face of lockdown and post-lockdown to retain their control in the education business. Thus, the adoption of online instruction to reach out to their consumers (students) remotely. This informs the study's focus on private schools as major players in the education system. 18 This study, however, explores the availability and utilisation of facilities for e-supervision instruction in the post-COVID-19 and fourth industrial era. Thus, a qualitative approach was used to collect data from the respondents to answer the following research questions:  What is the level of availability of E-supervision tools post-COVID-19?  Does gender cause variation in the utilisation of synchronous and asynchronous e-supervision tools?  Does school heads' status cause variation in utilising synchronous and asynchronous esupervision tools?

LITERATURE REVIEW
This section deals with a review of related studies on online learning and theoretical framework.

Online Learning
The pace at which schools all over the world adapted to online facilities to ensure continuity in learning and supervision of instruction activities despite the COVID-19-inflicted total lockdown was quite https://study.soas.ac.uk/covid-19-nigeria-digital-divide/?ref=dishapages; Wasiu Oyeleke Oyediran et al., "Prospects and Limitations of E-Learning Application in Private Tertiary Institutions amidst COVID-19 Lockdown in Nigeria," Heliyon 6, no. 11 (November 2020): e05457, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05457. 13 Hussain, in Nigeria: tackling the digital divide -SOAS Blog; Oyediran, et.al "Prospects and limitations of e-learning application in private tertiary institutions amidst COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria." 14 Hussain,  dramatic and transformative, even though it was referred to as "emergency e-learning protocols." 19 The term "emergency e-learning" or "emergency remote education" was applicable given the adoption of the facilities in the similitude of e-learning, online learning, homeschooling, or m-learning. 20 Despite the emergency nature of the adoption of e-learning facilities to bridge the gap of disruption created by COVID-19, online facilities became rapidly integrated into the fabric of the education system and other aspects of social life, such as remote working and virtual conferences. E-learning, a new technology associated with the 21 st century and the fourth industrial revolution instructional delivery, came with various facilities causing a total shift in the teaching and learning process. 21 An electronic learning system is the adoption of technology facilities typically used in schools or training centres for delivering classroom instruction and learning. 22 These new technologies eclipsed the epoch of learning facilities such as chalkboards, photocopiers, overhead projectors, videos, calculators, correspondence, and on-air classes to newly adopted resources like iPads, social media, the internet, Youtube, learning management systems (LMS), smartboards and microcomputers among others. 23 Prior to the advent of the COVID-19 Pandemic in early 2020, efacilities, which feature as an aspect of the fourth industrial revolution in education, faced the challenges of adoption and acceptance due to a lack of requisite skills and technical difficulties for teaching and supervision. 24 This hampered students' and teachers' perspectives on the ability of efacilities to aid instructional delivery. 25 Aside from this, many other challenges have been associated with e-learning instructional facilities pre-COVID-19. In many developing countries, perennial problems associated with e-learning include inadequate infrastructure, lack of stable internet connectivity and penetration into remote places, lack of ICT skills, and high cost of procurement and maintenance, aside from other challenges involving learning pedagogy and policy problems. 26 With COVID-19, however, came a forceful utilisation of virtual learning to maintain continuity in education delivery. 27 This prompted Dhawan to refer to online learning as "a panacea in the time of crisis," particularly teleconferencing software like Zoom, Skype, WebEx, and LMS software such as Google Classroom, Edmodo, and Schoology. 28 Online learning covers the broad terms of the 21 st -century technological facilities rapidly improving the understanding of education worldwide. Other similar terms include open learning, webbased learning, m-learning, computer-mediated learning, online learning, and e-learning. 29 The opportunities and challenges provided by these facilities further became emboldened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic when mass adoption became grossly inevitable for universities, secondary and primary schools from all over the world. 30 With the adoption of e-learning in schools during the heat of COVID-19, e-supervision became highly important in monitoring academic activities. Esupervision or online supervision is a web-assisted model for academic supervision designed using web-assisted technology to overcome geographical barriers and assist teachers. 31 Supervision of academic activities is role expected of the principal, who has the authority to design and develop school programs and conduct supervisory roles in ensuring their attainment. 32 With the surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face supervision became impracticable, especially since instructional activities were moved to online mode. 33 There is considerable evidence regarding gender differences in online learning outcomes, but the results are inconsistent and even paradoxical. Among users of online platforms, females show a more significant degree of commitment and engagement than males, while males have a more stable mindset toward online engagement. However, males have better technical skills and can use more learning strategies than females in virtual environments, even though females have better selfregulation than males. 34 An examination of gender differences in perceived ease of use, suspected external control, behavioural intention, and the use of e-learning platforms has been published. Variation favoured females with higher scores than males. 35  technologies in education, this is an encouraging development because it shows that the traditional gap between males and females has disappeared. 36 Thus, gender could significantly influence the usage of asynchronous and synchronous devices for instructional supervision.
Teaching and learning in the classroom are two-sided activities. Instruction changes behaviour, so it is useful to imagine a unit of instruction as being geared toward a particular desired behaviour, which is the learning outcome. Thus, the role of instruction cannot be overestimated. Supervision of instruction is an integral part of educational institutions' teaching and learning processes through assisting, directing, stimulating, and motivating teachers. The goal of supervision is to develop the teacher into the most effective, efficient, and ethical person they can be. 37 E-supervision of instruction involves using technology to direct, monitor, and coordinate teaching and learning activities. As part of distance education environments, e-supervision (synchronous and asynchronous) was developed for e-instruction. 38 An e-supervision system offers opportunities for enhanced collaboration between supervisors, head teachers, and teachers in geographically remote areas. 39 Teachers' preparation level for digital teaching has been associated with their gender, previous experience with online teaching, or a varying level of readiness. 40 Thus, school supervisors with prior preparation for digital instruction will play a significant role in using e-supervision platforms.
Rupiah further explained that instructional supervision was implemented with the principal serving the role of a supervisor and a teacher with implications for both the learners and the teachers. 41 The role of academic supervisors during the COVID-19 pandemic further stretched towards ensuring that educators stay safe and healthy while carrying out their instructional activities. 42 Before the advent of the pandemic, supervision is strictly referred to as the ongoing activities which aimed to coordinate, stimulate and guide the development of teachers at schools collectively and individually to ensure the optimal running of the learning process and achieve stated learning objectives. 43 With online supervision or e-supervision (synchronous and asynchronous), however, supervising academic activities as observed during the pandemic involved utilising ICT facilities in the form of Google Classroom, Google form, WhatsApp groups, Google Meet, and Telegram to carry out these hitherto conventional school supervision. 44 Aside from desktop software and applications with teleconferencing capabilities, other methods used by principals to conduct supervision during the COVID-19 lockdown period included pictures and video recordings of teachers principals can use to view and assess learning implementation carried out by teachers. 45 Online supervision or e-supervision (synchronous and asynchronous) came with the promise of helping school principals guide and train teachers to improve professional competence despite the heat of COVID-19 when offline instructionalrelated activities were impossible. 46 A study conducted by Fendi et al. in assessing online supervision during the pandemic discovered that 60% of supervisory tools for the pandemic period in a senior high school in Bangkinang, Indonesia, was based on teachers sending classroom recording via e-mail or instant messaging software like WhatsApp and Telegram. Based on these findings, they summed up the strengths of e-supervision as flexibility and adaptability, while technical challenges play out as the weaknesses of online-based academic supervision. 47 Reiterating the challenges faced by school principals in virtual or e-supervision activities, Brock et al., in their case study involving two school principals in Texas, discovered that problem solving was an essential aspect that supervisors must undertake with teachers to overcome the technical glitches that confronted e-supervision in the pandemic. 48 The findings of Brock et al. show that many school leaders and teachers perceive that online learning and supervision are comfortable to implement as an alternative to physical and academic activities. 49 However, Adarkwah asserted that developing countries such as Ghana have many crippling issues regarding online supervision. He argued that software and hardware problems must be critically examined and the provision of technical assistance by ICT personnel to ensure the supply of essential tools needed for school supervisors to evaluate instructional activities properly. 50 The unpreparedness of developing nations to combat educational challenges before and after the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be said of developed countries, which though unprepared for COVID-19, did not find the implementation of online learning and supervision too sudden. 51 This may be due to the availability of infrastructural and ICT facilities as essential tools in the fourth industrial revolution compliant world. The results of studies conducted on online supervision were based on many factors assessing the availability of e-supervision resources, technical know-how of teachers and principals, and readiness of students to utilise ICT facilities to learn. 52 Some of these studies concluded that esupervision and other forms of related instructional activities were quite successful during the 45 Dedi Prestiadi, Ahmad Nurabadi, and Wildan Zulkarnain, "Implementation of Instructional Supervision During the Covid-19 Pandemic," in Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Technology and Education (ICITE) 609 (Atlantis Press, 2021), 1-5. 46 Fendi, et. al pandemic, 53 while others highlighted the challenges that must be overcome to ensure efficiency in online supervision. 54

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Instructional Supervision Model
Several scholars from the early 1900s theorised different approaches to instructional leadership in teaching and learning processes, including John Dewey's democratic leadership, Crabb's model of academic supervision as social efficiency, 55 and Barr and Burton's approach, which is considered to be more scientific. 56 In this study, however, the focus is related to Burton and Bruckner's instructional supervision model. 5758 The Burton and Bruckner instructional supervision is classified into: i. Laissez-Faire Supervision: According to McKimm and Swanwick , the laissez-faire supervisor is not a constructive supervisor. They allow teachers to carry out instructional activities as they please. Thus, teachers are not afforded mentorship or guidance on handling daily classroom challenges. 59 Relating this type of supervision to the online education system makes obvious the numerous challenges of ensuring effective esupervision. ii.
Democratic Supervision: democratic supervision is a deliberative method of instructional supervision that allows teachers to express their individuality through instructional supervision. In Burton and Brueckner's discourse, the ideals of democracy believe in the appreciation of the dignity of the common citizens and their differences in carrying out their daily tasks. 60 Thus, democratic supervision gives teachers a sense of participation in educational leadership. Applying this to e-supervision, democratic supervision implies that teachers have a voice in selecting the most appropriate instructional strategy based on their individuality and the peculiarity of their respective subjects. In light of this, teachers. iii.
Training and Guidance: Burton and Brueckner's model was designed when active participation of learners in their learning, based on their interests, was advocated for. 61 This development impacted instructional supervision such that training and guiding teachers to keep learners interested in learning became essential. The uniqueness of e-learning and its emergent adoption in schools worldwide necessitated that this approach to instructional supervision be adopted, especially in schools and communities where human resources and technical know-how in online instructional facilitation are at their rudimentary level. iv.
Coercive Supervision: Coercive supervision is another term used to describe the authoritarian style of leadership instructional supervision. Coercive supervision "gives teachers order and instructions" 62 rather than giving room for deliberation and individuality in instructional delivery. In the emergent online learning curriculum, the coercive 53  supervisor gives teachers orders on which learning platform to use, when, and how. Teachers are not allowed to select a situation-based approach to deliver instructions online. Coercive supervision might have been disadvantageous when teachers grappled with technical hitches that characterised online learning at the commencement of the COVID-19 lockdown. v.
Inspection: This has been described as the earliest form of instructional supervision where a school inspector only inspected teachers in an authoritarian style of determining teachers' performance in instructional delivery. 63 This supervision style is inappropriate for the fourth industrial revolution and the post-COVID-19 world because it depends on the physical inspection of instructional activities.
This study considers democratic supervision and the training and guidance method most appropriate for online supervision. Democratic supervision gives teachers flexibility in ensuring that instructional delivery is effective based on their confidence in online instructional activities, while the training and guidance style ensures up-skilling of and guidance of teachers to meet the demands and cope with the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution instructional activities.

RESEARCH METHOD
In this study, the objective was to describe the availability and utilisation of e-supervision facilities in the post-COVID-19 era using a survey research design. Therefore, the design was suitable for this study because data were obtained from principals, vice-principals, and heads of departments (HODs). Principals, vice-principals, and heads of departments of all private secondary schools within Education District III, Lagos State, made up the population of this study. A random sampling of 45 private secondary schools was conducted within the district as part of this study. In total, 270 participants were surveyed, comprising 40 principals, 95 vice principals, and 135 HODs. Over two hundred seventy copies of the "Electronic Supervision of Instruction Questionnaire (ESIQ)" were administered, but only 226 correctly completed and returned forms were analysed. ESIQ has three sections. Section A provided the profile of the respondents, which included gender, rank, highest qualification, and years of experience, among others. Meanwhile, section B of the instrument has items to elicit the e-supervision tool available in their school and section C has items on the level of utilising the available e-supervision tools in the selected schools. The e-supervision tools used in this study were based on the researchers' personal experience and what is available in the literature. 64 Using JAMOVI version 2.1.2 software, the researchers employed a descriptive statistic of median to answer question one, and an independent t-test and one-way ANOVA to answer questions two and three, respectively. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to provide insight into the univariate normality assumption. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test the univariate normality of the dependent variables (e-supervision tools in synchronous and asynchronous mode after . The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to determine the distribution's normality since fewer than 2,000 items were in the dataset. A Shapiro-Wilk test based on the univariate normality assumption showed that the data were normally distributed for the synchronous e-supervision tools (W = 3.887, p = 0.631) and the asynchronous e-supervision tools (W = 2.863, p = 0.215). In addition, the assumption was tested using the Mahalanobis distance, which was found to be a maximum of 8.795. According to the Mahalanobis distance, the value of 8.795 is less than the critical value of 13.82; therefore, it can be assumed that the univariate normality assumption is met. 65 Using Levene's test for equality of variances, the researchers 63 McKimm and Swanwick, "Educational leadership and management." 64 Famularsih, in English Classroom; Dhawan, "Online Learning : A Panacea in the Time of COVID-19 Crisis." 65 Felix Boakye Oppong and Senyo Yao Agbedra, "Assessing Univariate and Multivariate Normality. A Guide for Non-Statisticians," Mathematical Theory and Modeling 6, no. 2 (2016): 26-33, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234680353.pdf; Hun Myoung Park, "Univariate Analysis and Normality Test Using established another assumption of homogeneity of variances using synchronous and asynchronous esupervision tools after COVID-19 by comparing the variances of each group participant. A nonsignificant result was obtained for synchronous and asynchronous (F (1,224) = 1.73, p = 0.210; F (1,224) = 1.14, p = 0.287). Hence, the non-significant p-value indicates that the variances are homogeneous. Further analysis was conducted since assumptions for the statistical tools were met.
The omega coefficient has always been reported to be a better choice than the alpha coefficient as well as the glb coefficient in the presence of skew data with small sample size. 66 MacDonald Omega and Omega were used to establish the reliability coefficient of the scale via the R-program package. The results indicated 0.877 and 0.858, respectively. It could be deduced that the scale is highly reliable since the two tests were above 0.80. 67

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Research Question One:
What is the level of availability of E-supervision tools post-COVID-19? Descriptive statistics implemented in JAMOVI version 2.1.2 software was used to answer research question one. Median statistics describing the availability of E-supervision tools at basic schools post-COVID-19 were adopted. This descriptive statistic provides more information about the sample than the mean, which many researchers in the literature predominantly report. Also, the measurement scale is ordinal, whereby there is no standard scale on which the difference in each rating is measured. There is a clear order to these categories, but it cannot be said that the difference between "very available" and "available" is the same as that between "fairly available" and "not available." For easy interpretation of the question, a median value less than 2.5 signifies half of the sample gave a rating to the item below 2.5, indicating a 'low level' of availability of E-supervision tools post-COVID-19. In addition, a median value greater than 2.5 signifies that half of the sample rated the item above 2.5, indicating a 'high level' of availability of E-supervision tools post-COVID-19.  Tape-recorder  asynchronous  3  High   Table 1 presents median values for each tool of E-supervision. It was revealed that the majority of sampled subjects (principals, vice-principals, and teachers) showed high enthusiasm toward various tools used for E-supervision in the post-COVID-19 era. However, items 8 and 12 had a low level of availability from the sampled subjects. Overall, it is evidenced that different tools are on the ground to monitor the progress of the teaching and learning process at the basic schools. However, many of them are asynchronous (such as WhatsApp, Google Classroom, Telegram, Edmodo, E-mails, Discussion boards, CCTV, Institution web-based applications and Tape-recorder), while few of them are synchronous (such as Zoom, Skype, Google meet and YouTube). These tools imply that there will be effective supervision of teaching and learning in the schools since COVID-19 has taught instructional supervisors how to discharge their duties without being hindered by the upsurge. Nonetheless, COVID-19 resulted in increased use of virtual learning tools for maintaining continuity in education delivery. 68 Research Question Two: Does gender cause variation in the utilisation of synchronous and asynchronous e-supervision tools? Also, research question two was answered using an independent sample t-test. The result is presented in Table 2.  Table 2 showed that female school heads had a higher mean score of (M = 14.60, SD = 1.77) compared with their male counterparts with (M = 13.80,SD = 2.20) in the utilisation of synchronous esupervision tools. This shows that female school heads had a better experience using synchronous Esupervision tools in the post-covid era. Also, an independent sample t-test was conducted to assess the observed difference in the gender experience using synchronous E-supervision tools; the result yielded a statistically significant difference between the male and female school heads' utilisation with (t = -2.91, df = 224, p = 0.004). Thus, gender cause variation in the use of synchronous E-supervision tools for the teaching and learning process post-COVID-19. This implies that the acquired skills and experience to use synchronous tools differ between male and female heads. This might allude to the fact that female school heads develop more interest in synchronous technology-driven tools for supervision of teaching and learning than male colleagues. Also, using asynchronous e-supervision tools, female school heads had a higher mean score (M = 23.00, SD = 1.93) than their male colleagues, who had a mean score (M = 22.30, SD = 1.92). Female school heads have had better experiences using asynchronous e-supervision tools post-COVID-19.
To assess the observed gender difference, an independent sample t-test was conducted; the result yielded a statistically significant difference between the utilisation of asynchronous esupervision tools by male and female school heads (t = -2.60, df = 224, p = 0.01). Thus, gender affects 68 Lockee, "Online education in the post-COVID era." the use of asynchronous e-supervision tools for teaching and learning after COVID-19. Male and female heads used asynchronous tools differently. Possibly this is an indicator that female school heads are more interested in asynchronous technologies when supervising teaching and learning. According to Qazi et al., Sebastián, and Yu, females are more committed and engaged than males, whereas males are more stable in their approach to achieving online objectives. 69 Research Question Three: Is there any significant difference in utilising synchronous and asynchronous e-supervision tools based on school heads' status?  Table 3a depicts that those with the head of a department status had a higher mean score of (M = 14.60, SD = 1.60) in using synchronous tools for effective monitoring of teaching and learning after Covid-19, followed by vice-principal with (M = 14.10, SD = 2.33) and principal with (M =13.30, SD = 1.90) respectively. More so, a one-way analysis of variance was used to establish whether there was a difference in their mean scores or not. The result remarked a statistical significant value with (F (2,223) = 5.19, p = 0.01). Consequently, school heads' status causes variation in utilising synchronous Esupervision tools. This implies that school heads' status contributes significantly to utilising different e-supervision tools in the post-COVID-19 teaching and learning process. Though, the head of a department played a more significant role in using these tools. This might lend credence to the fact that teachers work directly under the HODs, so monitoring their activities using the tools will be more efficient than principals and vice-principals.
Also, Table 3a illustrates the highest mean score (M = 23.50, SD = 1.69) for the head of a department in using asynchronous tools in monitoring teaching and learning after Covid-19, followed by vice-principal (M = 22.30, SD = 1.51) and principal (M = 21.30, SD = 2.73). The one-way analysis of variance was used to establish whether the mean scores differed. There was a statistically significant difference with (F (2,223) = 21.08, p = 0.001). Thus, school heads' status affects how they use asynchronous E-supervision tools. Therefore, school heads' status influences different e-supervision tools in the post-COVID-19 teaching and learning process. The department head had a greater say in using these tools. Teachers are directly under the HODs, so using the tools to monitor their performance is more efficient than using principals and vice-principals.
Furthermore, since the difference is significant, it is essential to determine the significance (post hoc analysis). To do so, a pairwise comparison of the turkey method was used. Results are presented in Tables 3b and 3c:   Table 3b shows a significant difference in synchronous e-supervision tools after COVID-19 between the principal and head of the department (mean diff =-1.27, p = 0.006). This result implies that heads of departments were positively disposed to utilising synchronous tools for monitoring teachers' teaching activities better after post-COVID-19. Also, Table 3c shows a significant difference in the use of asynchronous e-supervision tools after COVID-19 between principal and vice-principal with (mean diff = -0.95, p = 0.031) as well as head of the department with (mean diff = -2.16, p = 0.001). Also, there was a significant difference between the vice-principal and head of the department (mean diff = -1.21, p = 0.001).
This result implies that the vice-principal and head of the department were positively disposed to utilising asynchronous tools for monitoring teachers' teaching activities adequately after post-COVID-19. According to Scherer et al., online teaching effectiveness has been correlated with instructional supervisors' level of digital preparation for teaching. 70 Therefore, the readiness of schoolbased instruction will promote their effective utilisation of e-supervision tools.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings of this study, it is therefore recommended that: • Instructional supervisors should be trained and retrained on the use of e-supervision platforms to facilitate effective supervision of instruction and promote effective learning outcomes in the post-COVID-19 era. • By implications, government, school owners, and private individuals could provide capacitybuilding programmes for school-based supervisors to equip them for post-COVID challenges. 70 Scherer, "Profiling teachers' readiness for online teaching and learning in higher education: Who's ready?" • Also, institutions of higher learning should revisit their curriculum to accommodate the esupervision of instruction skills that will prepare future instructional supervisors with relevant skills.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the study indicates that digital devices are highly available (asynchronous and synchronous) for continuous supervision of instruction in the post-COVID-19 era. This prepared instructional supervisors to be ready for any unforeseen situation that might want to disrupt them from executing their roles. Also, it can be gender plays an important role in the utilisation of e-supervision platforms to enhance instruction. Lastly, it was observed that the rank/status of school-based supervisors is related to their utilisation of e-supervision of instruction tools.