Covid-19 factors affecting the high school teachers' competence at private schools in Yangon, Myanmar

Abstract

Teachers' competence is essential, especially during pandemic Covid-19. This research aims to identify the factors affecting the high school teachers' competence at private schools in Yangon, Myanmar. The 261 private high school teachers from a total of 1,777 teachers in the 4 districts of Yangon were included by multi-stage random sampling. A sequential mixed-method was employed. The first phase was the qualitative study. The 9 indepth interviews were done by categorizing stakeholders at national, school, and individual levels to find out the factors that may have an impact on the private high school teachers' competence during pandemic Covid-19. In the second phase, the cross-sectional survey was conducted after the content analysis of the responses from phase 1. The three groups of factors: personal factors, school factors, and new normal situational factors were tested in hierarchy linear regression analysis. It was revealed that the personal factor group which comprises of (1) teachers' motivation (2) teachers' attitudes and school factors group of (3) professional environment (4) preparation for the teachers (5) compensation (6) leadership and school management (7) facilities provided by the schools were the predictive factor groups for the teachers' competence. This research explains the relation of the predictive factors, as well as the relation between the motivation and the teachers' competence employing the motivational theories. It is expected that the findings and recommendations could contribute to developing the teacher's performance and capacity in the future. This study could be part of the literature for COVID-19 impact on education and preparation for the new normal as well.