Title: Exploring the views of Malaysian principals and novice teachers on the school-based support programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors: Lokman Mohd Tahir; Mohammed Borhandden Musah; Roslizam Bin Hassan

Addresses: School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia ' Education Studies Department, Bahrain Teachers College, University of Bahrain, Sakhir, Salmaniya, Bahrain ' School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Abstract: Despite many studies examining the initial challenges faced by novice teachers, few studies address the challenges of school-based support programmes implemented within Malaysian schools. Therefore, this study examines novice teachers' challenges concerning the school-based support programmes. The study interviewed 20 novice primary school teachers as well as ten primary school leaders. Principals were selected based on the purposive sampling approach. Age limit of the selected principals ranged from 44 to 54 years old. All teachers and principals interviewed were serving in public schools. The results reveal that low confidence, lack of skills and knowledge, issues in using online teaching and administrative positions were the main constraints. Issues that halted the school-based support programmes are restricted activities due to COVID-19 when most programmes are postponed and cancelled or conducted online. Significantly, school-based support programmes and COVID-19 have hardly been studied in reference to novice teachers' challenges within their inception years in Malaysia.

Keywords: novice teachers; school-based support programmes; principals; COVID-19; CPD; Malaysia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2025.142877

International Journal of Management in Education, 2025 Vol.19 No.1, pp.1 - 31

Received: 06 Jun 2022
Accepted: 05 Aug 2022
Published online: 30 Nov 2024 *

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