Lived Mentoring Experience of Early-Career Teachers in Selected Gauteng Public Schools : A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

This study reports on an investigation into the lived mentoring experiences of early-career teachers in selected Gauteng public schools. Although several studies have examined mentoring of early-career teachers, international evidence suggests that the experiences of mentoring for early-career teachers in different schools are not the same, hence the need to understand the same phenomenon in the context of South African schools. Therefore, this study focused on how early-career teachers in selected Gauteng public schools construct their mentoring experiences, what meanings are deduced from these experiences about the nature of mentoring and the benefits of a mentoring programme, and how mentoring of early career teachers could be improved.

This study uses the ONSIDE mentoring framework. The research was conducted using a qualitative design and made use of narrative inquiry. Purposive sampling was used to select the eight participants. Data was generated by means of letter writing and narrative interviews; the generated data was then analysed using narrative analysis and analysis of narratives.

From the narratives of participants, all early-career teachers, it emerged that mentoring in the selected schools took place formally and informally, and that the teachers were all allocated a senior teacher as their mentor. While mentoring occurs, it emerged that it happens outside deliberate plans on how it should happen and what are the expectations from mentors and mentees. While it is unplanned, the findings further reveal that the participants benefit from psychosocial support, they learn more about classroom management, discipline and subject matter, and benefit from career-related support. The study further finds that these early career teachers believe that mentoring can be improved by allocating multiple mentors to one early career teacher, by monitoring and by the creation of space for independence and constructive feedback. This study concludes that the mentoring support available for early-career teachers in schools is inadequate. Schools need to review and improve their mentoring programmes so that early-career teachers can fully benefit from them.