Developing Mentoring Capacities in Student-teachers through an Undergraduate Elective

Abstract

This project supports the development of a mentorship programme in the Faculty of Education’s undergraduate curricula, through a 6-credit elective course as a pilot mentorship programme with the later aim of incorporating the mentorship programme as a core component of the Faculty’s undergraduate curricula. The programme involves student-teachers learning to mentor young people at risk of academic and social marginalisation in the local community. The mentoring elective aims to develop student-teachers’ mentoring and advocacy skills and to widen participation in tertiary education by supporting underprivileged students both academically and socially. The elective hopes to enhance student-teachers’ critical understandings of the social, economic, cultural and political forces influencing education, to develop student-teachers’ self-efficacy as change agents, and enhance beliefs in inclusive educational principles. A larger aim of the mentoring programme is to break down social barriers between student-teachers, who are amongst an elite minority in Hong Kong who have successfully entered tertiary education, and students in Band 3 schools whose social capital and economic and social marginalisation threaten to undermine their chances of further education.

Deliverables