EXPLORING THE CHALLENGES PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS FACE WHILE LEARNING TO TEACH ACCOUNTING IN THE CONTEXT OF MENTORING

The study focused on the challenges pre-service teachers face while learning to teach Accounting in the context of mentoring at a University of Technology. The major was purpose was to investigate the kinds of challenges pre-service teachers face in Accounting and how their respective school-based mentors respond to these challenges. It is vital to understand these challenges while learning to teach Accounting before a mentor can respond to it. Data revealed that despite mentoring having the potential to enhance the preparation of pre-service teachers, it does not always yield positive results. It is also became clear in the data that the nature of the Accounting discipline requires a different type of mentoring as opposed to other disciplines. Hence a one size fits all mentoring institutional policy does not yield the desired results of mentoring pre-service teachers in the B Ed:FET programme. Findings from this study suggest that the university must take a greater role in developing mentorship programmes to support pre-service teachers learning to teach during teaching practice.