Teacher Mentorship Practices and Impact on Catholic School Culture in Secondary School Education in the South West and North West Regions of Cameroon

Abstract

The study investigated teacher mentorship practices and their impact on Catholic school culture in secondary school education in the South West and North West Regions of Cameroon. The study was guided by four objectives which were; to investigate subject coordinators perception about teachers’ mentorship practices; to examine teachers’ perception on mentorship practices; to find out students’ perception about teachers’ mentorship practices; and to examine Catholic Education Secretary’s perception on mentorship practices. The study was guided by one hypothesis. The target population of the study comprised of teachers, subject coordinators, students, and Education Secretaries of Catholic schools in the Bui, Mezam, Fako and Meme divisions in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon. The sample size of the study consisted of 275 teachers, 83 subject coordinators, 1188 students of form four to upper sixth and 4 Education Secretaries. The percentage of valid returned questionnaire was 93.9% for subject coordinators, 95.3% for teachers, and 95.7% for students. The participants were sampled using the purposive, random sampling, proportionate and convenient sampling techniques. Questionnaire and interview guide are the instruments adopted for the study. The reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.741 for subject coordinators, 0.870 for teachers, and 0.752 for students. Need analysis was used to ascertain the reliability of the interview guide. The SPSS version 27 (Statistical Package for Social Science) with the aid of descriptive and inferential statistical tools were the statistical techniques chosen to analyse the quantitative data while qualitative data were analysed narratively. The findings showed that Catholic school culture is not adequately practiced as indicated by coordinators 36.7% and teachers 37.9% with an overall mean of 2.82 below 3.0. More so, mentoring was not adequately carried out as shown by 32.6% subject coordinators, 35.6% of teachers, and 30.3% of students which was further confirmed with a grand mean of 2.87 below 3.0 on a mean scale of 1-4. Finally, mentoring was found to have a significant impact on Catholic school culture (R-value 0.229**, p-value < 0.001, explanatory power of 44.1%). Therefore, it was recommended that Catholic Education authorities should adequately improve on mentorship practices.