Mentorship: A missing link in education in sub-Saharan Africa?

Daniel Ddiba
2013 Zenodo  
In the West, start-up companies are developed in college dorms and sold later for billions. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), students sweat it out in libraries and later go on to spend years on streets looking for jobs. Various arguments have been presented on the possible causes of this general gap in fortunes for graduates from the West compared with those from SSA. This paper aims to show that the absence of clear intentional mentorship programs could be the missing link in the quality of higher
more » ... education in SSA. I will look at the history of various approaches to mentorship in education from Europe and America to Asia and Africa and trace the trends down the centuries since pre-medieval times. I will then look critically at the current status of the relationship between students, teachers/faculty and parents at higher levels of learning, taking into account the changing lifestyles of society in 21st century SSA. At this point, I will identify the short-comings of the traditional supervisor-student relationship in higher institutions in bringing to life the potential of students. I will attempt to ascertain the influence that the conditions of these relationships have had on the overall education experience of the students, hoping to show the importance of intentional and consistent mentorship to students while on the journey of their education. My conclusion will propose some suitable approaches to mentoring students at all levels of higher education in SSA.
doi:10.5281/zenodo.4452083 fatcat:dkye2uvd6zetjdut44ns3r7lsi