Developing a mentorship programme for 1st year engineering students: A case study at a South African University

In South Africa (SA) engineering students come from different socio-economic and schooling backgrounds. Most of them have challenges that make it difficult to settle in a university life. This issue is also compounded by the gap that exists between school and university. These challenges lead to poor retention, poor academic performance and participation. First year students often find the curriculum, workload, academic integration and adapting to the environment overwhelming. The purpose of the study is to explore and describe how a few colleagues in engineering conceived and initiated a mentorship programme to assist the first year Mechanical and Industrial Technology students in 2021. This is a case study where the inception of the mentoring programme is the case at hand. The approach is to study and analyze minutes, field notes and any documents that contains the information on how the colleagues deliberated and finally implemented the programme. From the data, it can be seen that there was a deliberate effort and drive to start a mentorship programme. A manual, describing the nature of the programme was drawn up which included a training manual to be followed. The process was a collective one. A decision was taken that a one-to-many mentoring programme using senior students was the best approach. The recruitment process was clearly outlined. The programme was conceived, deliberated and finally rolled out. About a hundred first year students from both Mechanical and Industrial Technology Degrees were in the programme. The fact that a group of academics formed a committee and joined forces in this initiative is worth noting. There is a view that the Mentorship Training Manual is generic to the type of student that is enrolled in a South African university. Even though face to face lectures and activities are prohibited due to Covid-19, the committee and the mentors found ways to start the programme. The next research article will be sharing experiences learnt as the programme was unfolding.