Establishing Effective Mentoring Culture among Professional University Administrators in Nigeria

Abstract

The university administration is expected to provide the enabling environment and the material facilities to research, teach or disseminate it, and preserve it. The implementation of policies towards achieving these rests on the administrative support machinery provided by the Registry Department, with the leading roles played by the class of group referred to in this work as professional administrators. The administrative system is strained partly because the university management has failed in its strategic planning efforts by not putting in place processes of succession plan that will ensure transfer of the relevant skills and knowledge, by a way of mentoring, necessary for success of the system in terms of continuity, survival and progress. This paper looked at the culture of mentoring among the university professional administrators by placing emphasis on how strategic it is in making professional administrators' cadre effective to take responsibility for the administration of the university and more importantly for succession planning. This is with particular attention being drawn to the culture of mentoring among them, the areas where mentoring is required, what it would involve to initiate it, and what the developmental benefits of (formal) mentoring are. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]