Mentoring Teachers in Primary Education: A Sustainable Development for Quality Assurance

Abstract

This paper focused on mentoring teachers in primary education; a sustainable development for quality assurance. It identified the objectives of effective mentoring in primary education, identified various mentoring techniques and examined how mentoring can help Primary Education teachers achieve sustainable development for quality assurance. Three (3) research questions guided the study with descriptive survey as the research design. Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba, Primary Education Department was used as case study. The department has twenty three (23) lecturers with different areas of expertise; English, Mathematics, Health, Arts, Computer and so on and one thousand five hundred (1500) student teachers.. Through random sampling, Eight (8) lecturers with fifty (50) student teachers were randomly selected. Two instruments were assigned for data collection; Head of Department Assessment for Quality Assurance (HODAFQA), Lecturers Mentoring Assessment for Quality Assurance (LMAFQA). The instrument used was a structured questionnaire, developed by the researcher and validated by two experts. Simple percentage was employed to verify the validity of data in terms of frequency count, mean and standard deviation. The findings reveal that mentoring assessment depend on mentor- mentee relationship, trust and respect as well as open and honest communication among others. The study concluded by suggesting the transmission of cooperate intelligence; providing guidance on how to leverage the strengths of lecturers in various areas of specialization, minimizing the impact of the teachers shortcomings, among others. The study recommended that teachers and school leaders under primary education programmes should encourage greater participation of mentoring programmes, be vulnerable, available and possess the act of active listening. This will help teacher education attain and sustain its standards, bring about new practices and learning styles for sustainable quality assurance.  

Keywords: Mentoring, Teacher Education, Sustainable development