Mentoring and Career Development of Academics in Colleges of Education in Cross River State Nigeria

Abstract

Currently the reasons for mentoring in our career is on the increase as the operational environment is embedded with risk , change ,staff competition, unethical career practices , high uncertainty, unfavourable government policy implementation and ignorance of the role of mentors being in control of the weak site. It is grossly required for good mentoring to be in our educational system of rewards and promotion. The study therefore investigates mentoring and career development of academia in colleges of education in Cross River state, Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study comprised all the 1075 Chief lecturers and young lecturers 'while multi choice sampling technique was used to sample 570 respondents. One research question and two research hypotheses guided the study. The researcher developed questionnaires tagged 'Mentoring and Career Development for Academia Questionnaire' (MCDAQ). Questionnaire containing 12 items was the instrument for data collection, which was validated by three experts from the University of Calabar, Calabar with total reliability coefficients of 0.82. Mean ratings and standard deviation were used in answering the research questions. While T test was used in testing the hypothesis. The major findings of the study revealed that mentoring is in practices in collages of education in Cross River state, Nigeria. That there is mentoring relationships among academic staff. The study also revealed that female face more challenges in course mentoring than the male academic

Challenges of Mentoring Among University Academics in Nigeria

“…Instant gratification impedes effective mentoring as discussed in this study. This is further reiterated by Undiyaundeye & Basake's (2017) finding that the challenges to effective mentoring in the academia include the inability and unwillingness of young academics to follow instructions from mentors, due to the "get rich quick" mentality, the inability of the institution to manage personnel and ensure good community partnerships, inability and unwillingness of the mentors to support subordinate professional growth and finally, the inability of the school management to sanction untoward behaviour by young academics due to godfatherism. To deal with the challenges confronting the mentoring programme, participants in the mentoring exercise should be committed to their roles and responsibilities (Al Makhamreh & Stockley, 2020).…”

“…Many studies have been undertaken to establish the need for mentoring among academic staff in Nigerian universities (Sola, 2018;Omale et al, 2017;Undiyaundeye & Basake, 2017;Kolade, 2015;Nnaji et al, 2015). The consensus based on the works of the abovementioned scholars is that young academic staff just entering the university system face many challenges and that if not properly guided they may be unable to successfully overcome them at the appropriate time.…”

“…According to Undiyaundeye & Basake (2017), the pursuit of development by young academic staff in Nigeria is not without challenges, fears and anxieties and therefore mentoring can be an effective way of mitigating the stress of new lecturers, help them resolve challenges and help them achieve their career goals more readily. Mentoring has also been advocated as a means of transferring the skills which protégés need and can apply in diverse professional circumstances, promote learning and productive use of knowledge, definition of goals and career paths and job satisfaction (Okurame & Balogun, 2005).…”

Mentorship in librarianship: meeting the needs, addressing the challenges

“…Practicing librarians require mentorship to amplify their accomplishment and increase their publication level (Sodipe and Madukoma, 2013). Mentorship ameliorates professional improvement of librarians in the course of seeking career advancement or transiting into new roles (Undiyaundeye and Basake, 2017). Mentorship encourages scholarship and help librarians starting a new position to understand the library standards, routines, expectations and culture (Farmer et al, 2009).…”

“…However, mentorship has recently been revitalized in academic libraries in Nigeria owing to increasing anxiety to improve information delivery system, and a yearning for academic libraries in Nigeria to contend auspiciously with other academic libraries in other parts of the globe (Bello and Mansor, 2013;Enweani, 2019). Undiyaundeye and Basake (2017) believed that mentorship is an old concept in a new guise. The administrators of academic libraries all over the world are under amplified apprehension to provide prospects for professional guidance and advancement of their personnel to forestall a fall in job performance BL 34,1 86 (Ogunlana et al, 2013;Ogunlana, 2007;Idoko et al, 2016).…”