Abstract
Through dialogues with several school management teams in the Khomas region in Namibia, I realised that mentoring in schools is not necessarily at the top of everybody’s agenda due to health restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. This led me to explore new mentoring strategies that could be used by the school management to support teaching staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. The yearly abandonment of the teaching profession by educators is a worrisome situation for the educational fraternity as larger numbers are leaving the profession compared to the rate of teachers’ intake joining the profession. Many teachers enumerate that burnout, excessive workload stress, and lack of pedagogical guidance are motives behind exiting their teaching careers and cite the lack of teacher mentoring as a major contributing factor to their decision. The current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to worsen the trajectory of teachers’ attrition. The study aimed to investigate new mentoring strategies that might be used in supporting teaching staff during the COVID-19 pandemic at secondary schools in the Khomas region, Namibia. The qualitative technique of the semi-structured interview was used during this study where six participants (males and females) – principals, deputy principals, and heads of department – from three secondary schools were randomly selected. The data analysis enabled me to identify new mentoring strategies that could be used in supporting teaching staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. This would reduce the level of burnout and excessive workload stress among teaching staff to strengthen them in coping with resilience. Equally, the new mentoring strategies identified would be beneficial to the Khomas education region through teachers’ retention. In response to the research questions, the findings of the study highlighted that the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in schools impacted the participant teachers, learners, and school management teams. The use of online communications, segmenting mentees into smaller groups, modelling collaborative behaviours, and establishing positive group norms were also identified as new mentoring strategies to support teaching staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, pedagogical and psychological/emotional support were perceived to be the role of the school management in teacher mentoring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
M.Ed. (Educational Leadership and Management)