Mentoring: The Practice and Challenges of Government High Schools of Addis Ababa
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Date
2009-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The over all functions of education is changing the behavior of the leamers so
as to make them playa proactive role in a changing world. The roles will be
played if teachers are professionally competent and transmit knowledge, skills
and attitudes. To strengthen this competency, the attention given to teachers,
particularly to be engaged in men to ring teachers as a mentor and men tee is a
basis for their professional development, is promising. Thus, the purpose of
this study was to examine systematically the practices and challenges of
mentoring in govemment high schools of Addis Ababa. Accordingly, the mojor
variables were the Purposes of the mentoring, Practices of mentees and
mentors, Orientation and Training on Mentoring, Timing and Frequency of
meetings for discu ssions, Judgments of the practices of mentoring, and
Challenges/ Barriers of men to ring were the fo cus of the study. In order to
achieve the pUlpose of the study, a descriptwe survey method was employed.
The study w as conducted in three sub-cities found in Addis Ababa that were
selected based on simple random sampling technique . Among 15 h igh schools
in these three sub-cities, 8 were selected with stratified random samplll1g
techniques. From 8 high schools, all mentees and mentors were selected
purposefully. Moreover, 6 officials of sub-cities educational departments (i.e., 2
from each sub-city) and 2 from AAEB were also selected purposefully too. Data
were gathered from sample respondents through a s urvey questionnaire,
inte rview, and data analysis. The data were analyzed using statistical tools
such as frequency count, percentage, mean, and t-test were used for data
analysis. The findings of the study revealed that mentees do not have
awareness that mentoring program comes out with built team spirit and
shared wisdom that pertain cooperation when compared with mentors. As to
the practice of relationship, both mentees and mentors have relatively a wide
gap to put their expected roles, skills, responsibilities and qualities into
practice. In addition, orientation and training given was not adequate, long
lasting and continuous, and; timely. On the other hand, the major challenges
experienced were poor clarity ' of roles, lack of well experienced expertise
regarding mentoring and the absence and mal distribution of hand book and
course materials for mentees and mentors. In general, the current practices of
mentoring was judged as being less effective in achieving the major objectives
that it intended to serve. Therefore, due emphasis should be given on
improving the mentoring activities by being proactive toward the success.
Moreover, timely, adequate and appropriate orientation and/ or training on
mentoring and its elements should be focused on in order to build commitment
and team spirit. All the suggestions should be taken as a package and needs
joint planning and monitoring and evaluation.
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Keywords
Mentoring: The Practice