ABSTRACT
This study was
designed to investigate the assessment of school principals’ mentorship of
subordinates in Imo state secondary schools. Five research questions and five
hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted descriptive
survey research design. The population for the study comprised of 558 vice
principals and 5,135 teachers making of up 5693. Sample for the study comprised
514 teachers and 56 vice principals. The instrument for data collection was a
structured questionnaire titled school principals mentorship of subordinates
questionnaire. The instrument was faced validated by three experts, two from
Education Administration and Planning and one from Measurement and Evaluation,
all from the Department of Educational Foundations University of Nigeria
Nsukka. The questionnaires were trial tested and cronback Alpha reliability
test was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and this
yielded reliability co-efficient (0.79). Data were analysed using mean and
standard deviation to answer research questions and t-test statistics was used
to test the null hypotheses formulated at 0.05 level of significance. Based on
the findings among which is that the overall mean values indicates that the
opinion of vice principals and teachers with regards to principals exposure of
subordinates to instructional leadership was to a great extent. It was
recommended that adequate principals’ mentorship strategies should be adopted
in secondary schools in Imo State to ensure effectiveness. These mentorship
strategies include instructional leadership, fostering friendliness, keeping
good school community relations, supporting staff career development and school
discipline. This could be achieved by organizing seminars and workshops to
enable principals imbibe the mentorship skills in the day to day running of
their schools.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
The idea of providing novices entering any field or profession and those
already in the profession with a wise, experienced guide and role model dates
to ancient times and has gained widespread acceptance in many walks of life.
From law, medicine and nursing to business, engineering, architecture and
library work. Within public education, mentoring for teachers began to spread
in the early 1980s as part of efforts to reduce attrition and improve
instruction quality. Having a quality relationship with school administrators
is important to novice teachers as well as experience ones because principal’s
support influences teachers’ job satisfaction and decisions to remain in
teaching.
Mentoring is a very old concept in a new guise. It can be traced back to
Greek mythology when Odysseus entrusted his son Telemachus to the Goddess
Athena, who disguised herself in human form as mentor, an old friend of
Odysseus. Her function, according to Homer (2001) was to act as a wise
counsellor and helper to the youth. Mentoring then became common practice in
the time of the guild and trade apprenticeships when young people, having acquired
technical skills, often benefited from the patronage of more experienced and
established professional. Most successful people in any walk of life probably
have had one or more people over the years who have established particularly a
strong influence over their lives and careers.
Mentoring therefore can be seen as a deliberate pairing of a more skilled
or experienced one with the agreed-upon goal of having the less experience
person grow and develop specific competencies (Murry and Owen 2002). Also,
mentoring according to Mckimns (2003) connotes an assistance given to an
individual in other to enable him/her grow in the profession. In the same vein,
Okondayo (2007) defines mentoring as a relationship which exists between the
mentor (principals) and the mentee (teachers and vice principals) with the aim
of assisting the mentee to cope with a new situation like a new job or a change
in personal circumstances or in career development.
Bozeman and Feeney (2007) defined mentorship as a process of informal
transmission of knowledge, social capital and the psychosocial support
perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional
development which entails informal communication, usually face to face and
enduring a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have
greater relevant knowledge, wisdom or experience (the mentor) and the person
perceived to have less (the mentee). By this definition, mentoring is a process
which involves time, helping, personal development and relationship between an
expert which in this study is principals in Imo state secondary schools and a
neophyte being teachers and vice principals in Imo state secondary schools. The
principals in this study as mentors are expected to give their expert knowledge
so that their subordinates (vice principals and teachers) will develop their
full potentials while in teaching profession.
However true mentoring is more than just answering occasional questions
or providing ad hoc help. It is an on-going relationship of learning, dialogue
and challenge. One can deduce from all these definitions above that mentorship
is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experience or more
knowledgeable person which in this study is the school principal, helps to
guide the less experienced and less knowledgeable person, which is the vice
principals and teachers in this study.
This cordial relationship between the mentor and the mentee with the aim
of assisting the mentee to grow in the line of business if effectively applied
in the school system may yield result that is capable of maintaining effective
school administration in Nigeria (Onyedineke, 2001). This is because, teaching
has always been described as a multifaceted, and complex task that requires
guidance from experience or senior colleagues. Conventional Wisdom among
Educators, (2011) outlines the concern that new teachers are poorly introduced
to the profession, resulting in a loss of the best and the brightest among
these teachers. In other words, mentoring in school setting could be likened to
maintaining and facilitating professional growth among teachers.
Therefore, for principals in Imo state secondary schools to fulfil this
mentoring role to their subordinates (teachers and vice principals) in this
study, they have to create conditions which promote the growth and development
of these subordinates within their schools. They can do this by exposing vice
principals and teachers in Imo state to instructional leadership. Instructional
leadership can be defined as those actions that a principal takes, or delegates
to others,
to promote growth in student learning (Flath, 2000). School principals in Imo
state can expose subordinates to instructional leadership, by promoting
on-going evaluation and professional development of these teachers, they will
also ensure that their relationship with teachers and vice principals are of
high quality and supported with time for planning and collaboration. If
principals are to take the role of instructional leader seriously, they will
have to free themselves from bureaucratic tasks and focus their efforts towards
improving teaching and learning. Also, principals in this study act as mentors
to their subordinate by fostering friendliness among their subordinates which
in turn will create good rapport and conducive atmosphere between teachers and
vice- principals for effective teaching and learning to take place. They also
mentor subordinates by supporting their career development through In-service
educational programmes; Seminars and workshops and occasional teachers’ group
discussion; supported by the school principals.
Furthermore, since secondary schools in Imo state brings up their
students to grow into useful members of the community, it is then necessary for
principals as mentors to create avenues which will encourage teachers and vice
principals to keep good school community relationship. According to Mgbodile
(2003) school community relations can be describe as the degree of
understanding and goodwill achieved between the school and the community.
Principals in Imo state can promote school community relationship, by making
sure that parent teachers association meeting is in place in the school for
parents and teachers interaction and also by allowing teachers and vice
principals participate in important....
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Item Type: Postgraduate Material | Attribute: 99 pages | Chapters: 1-5
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