What is Apprenticeship?
Apprenticeship is an industry-driven, high-quality career pathway where employers can develop and prepare their future workforce, and individuals can obtain paid work experience, classroom instruction, and a portable, nationally-recognized credential. It includes:
- Paid Job – Apprentices are paid employees who produce high-quality work while they learn skills that enhance their employers’ needs.
- On-the-Job Learning– Develops skilled workers through structured learning in a work setting.
- Classroom Learning – Improves job-related skills through education in a classroom setting (virtual or in-person).
- Mentorship – Provides apprentices with the support of a skilled worker to assist and enhance critical hands-on learning.
- Credentials – Offers a portable, nationally-recognized credential to be issued at the completion of the program.
- A mentor is someone who has a genuine interest in overseeing and supporting the career and/or development of another person outside the normal supervision process. Mentors may help their mentees by: encouraging and empowering personal development. helping identify and correct gaps in relevant skills and knowledge.
What is the role of the mentor?
“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.”
Steven Spielberg
A mentor is someone who has a genuine interest in overseeing and supporting the career and/or development of another person outside the normal supervision process. Mentors may help their mentees by:
- encouraging and empowering personal development
- helping identify and correct gaps in relevant skills and knowledge
- increasing confidence
- developing and maintaining a broader perspective on career options and opportunities
- defining, and helping to achieve career goals
- providing additional access to a senior role model
- providing a broader perspective as well as insight into university culture
Mentors may enter a long-term mentoring relationship or may be called upon to act as a one-stop mentoring advice point for a specific topic.
Other roles and responsibilities include:
- understanding what mentoring is and each role within the relationship
- validating that mentoring is the best solution for support
- agreeing a mentoring contract at the beginning of each relationship
- making a genuine commitment to mentoring relationships
- seeking further clarity on objectives, to be clear on the required outcome
- dealing professionally with any conflicts of interest that arise
- observing confidentiality
What is the role of the mentee?
“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen and a push in the right direction.”
John C Crosby
The mentee is responsible for being proactive and is expected to drive the mentoring relationship forward. This means selecting a mentor, establishing, and maintaining contact with them, and setting up meetings. The mentee is expected to set the agenda and develop objectives for the program.
Other roles and responsibilities include:
- understanding what mentoring is and each role within the relationship
- agreeing and committing to mentoring
- setting the agenda and purpose for the relationship
- clarifying to the mentor what they would like to achieve
- agreeing a mentoring contract at the beginning of the relationship
- maintaining commitment to the relationship
- observing confidentiality