MENTORING IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST- A REALITY OR A FALLACY? (Published)
There is growing interest in teacher induction and widespread support for the idea of assigning experienced teachers to work with newly recruited teachers. Still, we know relatively little about what mentors in the University of Cape Coast (UCC) do, how they think about their work, and what their mentees learn from their interactions with them. This article presents the perception of approximately 150 Lecturers/Assistant Lecturers who were recruited between 2008 to 2013 academic year. As the literature on mentorship indicates, mentorship plays an important role in a mentee’s life therefore, so to sustain and develop experience lecturers, mentorship programmes need to be relevant, personalized and unique. The methodology used in this study employed descriptive design (non-experimental). The target population was made up of lecturers in the University of Cape Coast. The accessible population was made up of all the 270 assistant/ lecturers in the university who were appointed between 2008 to 2013 academic year.The results showed that on the whole respondents acknowledged that mentors play some roles in the mentoring system. Concerning the perceptions of future mentoring, more than half of the mentees had some concerns about future mentoring. About two thirds of the respondents agreed that mentoring issues should be considered during promotions. It was recommended that UCC and administrators in particular should clearly articulate the goals of mentoring programmes and to highlight the ways in which they can directly impact mentee’s achievement.
Keywords: Assistant lecturers, Lecturers, Mentees, Mentoring