Exploring Teachers' Difficulties and Efforts in Developing Self-Competence Towards Professional Teachers: A Survey

A teacher must have four minimum competencies, namely: pedagogical competency, professional competency, social competency, and personal competency. In addition, teachers are expected to be able to plan and manage resources under their responsibility, be able to solve problems of science, technology, and/or art in their field of science, and conduct research. However, in the literature there are not many studies that specifically explore the difficulties and efforts of teachers to develop the required competencies. This study involved 128 teachers as respondents with a margin of error of 0.06. The instrument was distributed via google form to alumni of PPG in office in 2023 periods 2 and 3. The instrument explores the difficulties and various efforts made by teachers in developing minimum competencies. The results of the analysis show the development of teachers' self-competence towards becoming professional teachers, through the following activities: conducting classroom action research, conducting self-reflection activities on learning activities, participating in training and workshops, continuing education, developing technological competence, joining a professional community, developing soft skills, and collaborating with colleagues. Various obstacles and gaps are discussed as basic ideas in developing teacher competence.