MENTORING: A HOLISTIC LEARNING OPPORTUNITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Higher education (H.E.) has changed dramatically over the past decades with increasing enrolment, student mobility, diversity of provision, and the changing dynamics of research and technology. With over 254 million students enrolled globally (UNESCO, 2024), diversity and employability has made it imminent to incorporate more personalized education and flexible learning paths. Mentoring is visualised as a helping relationship in which two individuals with similar experience and requirements come together, either informally or formally, in the pursuit of fulfilling career-related and psychosocial needs. This relationship process may be embedded into Higher Education in order to enhance the holistic advancement – academic development, career development, as well as personal – of g raduate s tudents ( Lunsford e t a l., 2 017, p . 3 23). S uch a n approach benefits all the stakeholders – learners, mentors, industries, government and policymakers – if engaged in purposefully. This article is conceptual in nature, undertaken by review of secondary data, exploring the concept mentoring, revisiting the various models of mentoring, and examines three cases to establish the importance and relevance of mentoring in Higher Educational Institutions (H.E.I.s). The article ends with clear directions to the various stakeholders in higher education.