Mentor Wasn’t Always Available: Challenges of Pre-Service Teachers on Supported Teaching in Schools

Abstract

The goal of the study was to identify the difficulties that pre-service teachers encountered while participating in supported teaching in schools. Using a phenomenology design, the study utilized a qualitative approach. Convenience sampling technique was used to sample twenty (20) level 100 pre-service teachers (12 males and 8 females) who were enrolled in a bachelor of education program. Data was gathered through extensive, semi-structured interviews. The majority of the challenges encountered by student-teachers were related to the attitude of the mentors such as mentor absenteeism, mentor lateness, mentor inability to provide student-teachers with necessary information they needed, mentor inability to assist student-teachers, and mentor’s lack of devotion for student-teachers. The partner school related challenges identified were: lack of mentors, inadequate curricular materials, inadequate teaching and learning materials, inadequate textbooks, and inadequate furniture in some schools. It was found that majority of mentors in the partner schools had little knowledge of what supported teaching in schools entailed. Thus the mentors found it challenging to give student-teachers the support and direction they needed. In many instances, mentors were unfamiliar with the new Bachelor of Education Curriculum, which made it challenging for them to offer effective and knowledgeable mentorship. Some college tutors did not provide student-teachers with enough assistance through reflection.