A mentoring programme for pre-employment trades students
In the early 2000s a concern started to develop in Aotearoa/New Zealand about low student retention and completion of tertiary education programmes (Scott, 2005). Simultaneously, awareness was growing that many people in New Zealand lacked the literacy and numeracy abilities to meet the demands of our current and future society. These concerns were shared by educators and management in a polytechnic that I was involved with.
To identify whether mentoring would be a useful strategy to deal with these concerns, I initiated exploratory case studies in two trades programmes in this polytechnic. Mentoring seemed to incorporate a range of support approaches that were reported in the literature as impacting positively on retention and success. At the same time, mentors would be able to assist students with the literacy and numeracy needed for their studies.
A mentoring programme was developed for the two trades programmes in two different ways. In one programme two teachers took on the role of mentor, while in the other programme the mentors were learning advisors in the institutional student support centre. All mentors were given the task to provide pastoral support as well as academic support regarding literacy and numeracy.
The mentoring programme was evaluated using retention and completion statistics, student questionnaires, and interviews with mentors and teachers. Two reports were written in the form of refereed papers for conferences (Govers, 2006; Govers, Martin, & Williams, 2007). Findings were also shared with the organisation.
Despite being a promising strategy for improving retention and success, the mentoring programmes were discontinued due to their financial implications. However, the programme had shown the importance of ‘knowing the students’ in helping students to be successful. This positive experience of the teachers contributed to teachers putting more effort into getting to know their students. The seed had been sown, and slowly mentoring has started to grow in the organisation in different forms.
With respect to students' literacy and numeracy development, this aspect of the support was continued through the student support centre, until a year later the government introduced a nation-wide literacy and numeracy strategy, which expected literacy and numeracy to become embedded into vocational programmes.
References
Govers, E. (2006, December 5-8). Experiences with coaching in a level 2 tertiary engineering programme. Paper presented at the New Zealand Association for Research in Education National Conference and Annual Meeting, Rotorua, NZ
Govers, E., Martin, H., & Williams, M. (2007, September 27). Improving student success through mentoring in pre-employment trades programmes: Two case studies. Paper presented at the New Zealand Association for Bridging Educatiors 7th Annual Conference, Auckland, NZ
Scott, D. (2005). Retention, completion and progression in tertiary education in New Zealand. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 27(1), 3-17. doi: 10.1080/13600800500045687