McInnis (2000) suggests a discrepancy between the most important support services identified by the students (employment service, counselling and learning support) and the most frequently used support facilities (student union café and libraries).
Academic support includes “defining the course territory; explaining concepts; exploring the …show more content…
First, it creates commitment towards learning and enhances the confidence and self-esteem while providing an environment that is supportive of student learning. Second, it involves the mediation of uniform and standard of learning material to support development and learning for individual students. Third, it involves information management system and administrative process establishment that is student friendly and effective Tait (2000).
Academic support services are tools offered by the university that directly affect a student’s coursework.
The earliest origin of the term mentoring originates from the “story of Ulysses and his son Telemachus… the son was entrusted by his father into the care of a Mentor. The Mentor was old and wise and took charge of the son’s education, helping him mature” (Woodd 1997).
The student mentoring program and its variants is one that is being increasingly in universities throughout the world. (PAL_mentors_and_mentees). It originated from the United Kingdom in the early 1990’s. (Wallace, 1992; Rust & Wallace, 1994). The definition of peer assisted learning is that it is a “scheme that fosters cross-year support between students on the same …show more content…
According to Long (1997) “under various conditions, the mentoring relationship can actually be detrimental to the mentor, mentee or both” (p. 115). The obstacles brought about by mentors can be in terms of poor planning; (Long (1997) (Ehrich et al 2004),mismatch between the mentor and mentee (professional incompatibility and due to race and gender; (Long (1997) (Ehrich et al 2004), time constrains; (Long (1997), lack of training for mentors;(Ehrich et al 2004) ,perception of mentoring to be burden and increase in workload;(Ehrich et al 2004) and the perception that the behavior demonstrate by mentees is unacceptable; (unrealistic expectation from mentoring program and commitment issues) (Ehrich et al