Mentoring process a stimulus for professional development of primary school teachers in Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

This paper explores the effects of mentoring on the professional development of Primary School Teachers (PSTs) in Punjab province, Pakistan. The key objectives of the study include: to study the mentoring process started in Punjab province Pakistan for PSTs, to study the effects of mentoring process on the professional development of PSTs. The population of the study was 47988 PSTs and 1370 District Teachers Educators (DTEs) from the twelve districts of Punjab province. The sample was comprised of 381 PSTs and 302 DTEs from the 12 districts of the province. Quantitative data was collected through specifically designed questionnaires. The data was analyzed by using Mean Score, Chi-Square was used to compare the group frequencies and t-test was used to see the significance difference between the means of both groups. Qualitative data was collected through interviews and analyzed by using NVIVO software version 10. Majority of the PSTs and DTEs agreed that mentoring process helped them out in decreasing the professional stress and helped out in covering the backlogs of unseen days in an educational year. Both groups of respondents were agreed that mentoring process was not helpful in achieving the pre-set targets. Mentoring process may be designed in such a way that it should help the PSTs in managing the activities of absent days. Mentoring process should be designed to help out the PSTs in managing the teaching activities in a realistic ways. Directorate of Staff Development (DSD) should evolve a inclusive mentoring model for implementation of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities in different areas of professional development of Primary School Teachers with reference to research, training, monitoring and evaluation.