National Leadership Mentor Program for School Teachers: Scaffolding Beginner Teacher towards Leading School

This policy paper proposes a model for, ‘National Leadership Mentor Program for School Teachers’ on the lines of recommendations of National Education Policy 2020 of India for setting up National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) and National Mentoring Mission (NMM). The objective of the paper is to review two documents on National Professional Standards for Teachers & National Mentoring Mission developed by National Council for Teacher Education, India and propose the mentoring model, which integrates the mentoring aims with the career progression targets. The purpose of the model is to develop a system of scaffolding teachers by drawing in from the mentoring pool, prepared specifically for the skill sets and standards of particular level. The methodology adopted is qualitative research with documentary content analysis method. The key finding is that there is a need to integrate NPST with NMM for ensuring excellence in acquiring standards and movement through career progression. The proposed model provides the basis for implementation of NMM at a National Level.