TEACHING COMPETENCY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS OF SIKKIM: STATUS AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS

Abstract

Teaching competency is a central determinant of the quality of secondary education, yet very less studies has been done through direct classroom observation. This study focused on general teaching competency among secondary school teachers in Sikkim. Using a cross-sectional, comparative observational design, trained observers rated 308 secondary school teachers on the Passi and Lalitha (2011) General Teaching Competency Scale, a 21-item, seven-point observational instrument rooted in the microteaching tradition. Competency was operationalised as the summed observed score, which can range from 21 to 147. The mean was 61.56 (SD = 7.07), and scores ranged from 43 to 83 in a near-symmetric distribution. Interpretation followed two complementary bases. Judged against the instrument’s standardised norms derived from pre-service trainees, almost the whole sample fell into the lowest grade bands, an outcome that reflects a mismatch between the norming group and serving teachers rather than poor practice. Judged against sample-referenced bands, competency was distributed normally: 65.9% of teachers were moderate, 18.2% high, and 15.9% low. Welch t-tests and a one-way analysis of variance found no significant differences in competency by gender, locale, school management, academic qualification, professional-qualification cohort, or teaching experience, and every effect size was negligible (all |d| ≤ 0.20, η² = .001). The competency profile is therefore moderate and strikingly uniform, a pattern that mirrors two parallel Sikkim studies-of professional commitment and of higher-secondary teaching competency-and converges with competency research from the Philippines, Oman, Nigeria, and elsewhere The findings have implications for teacher professional development, classroom-quality monitoring, and evidence-based educational policy in small-state educational contexts. The findings caution against the uncritical use of norms built on non-equivalent groups and carry implications for how teacher-quality policy in Sikkim is targeted.