Mentoring: Role of Mentors in the Professional Life of Student-Teachers

Abstract

Mentoring has gained recognition as being a major factor and component in the training and professional development of individuals across various sectors such as education, health, commerce and industry. Mentoring is thus described generally as involving helping and giving back information to the student teacher without any unqualified criticism or laydown streamlines. Thus, the study investigated the essence of mentoring programme in shaping the professional behaviour of student-teachers in the Assin North Municipality. The study was conducted in the Assin North Municipal Assembly in the Central Region of Ghana. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. A sample of 200 student-teachers and 130 teacher-mentors were selected for the study through simple random sampling. The instrument for collecting data was adapted. The data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The study revealed that mentors provided help to student-teachers in unearthing their potentials in teaching, acted as role-models for student-teachers, and helped improve teaching abilities of student-teachers through regular feedback. It was recommended that authorities of Colleges of Education fully prepare teacher-mentors to effectively assist their student-teachers during the mentorship period.