Establishing Effective Mentoring Culture among Professional University Administrators in Nigeria

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.


Introduction
The University is a medieval creation.It started as a private institution, which later grew to include public ones, principally to provide a milieu for free and independent inquiry into various fields of knowledge -Peter Adeniyi, 2011.The history of University education in Nigeria can be traced back to 1948 when the University College, Ibadan was established sequel to the recommendation of the Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa set up in 1943 by the British colonial government.The University College was then an affiliate of the University of London.Between that 1948 and now, University education in Nigeria has gone through phases of development, especially increase in the number of universities and transfer of ownership in many cases.Following the establishment of the University College, the government was prompted to appoint the Ashby Commission on Post-Secondary and Higher Education (in 1959) to conduct an investigation into Nigeria's need in the field of higher education over a period spanning 20 years to address the acute shortage of skilled manpower.According to NUC (1997), the commission symbolically titled its report "investment in education" prescribing that education is indeed the tool for achieving national development, economic expansion and social emancipation of the individual.The 1990 Longe Commission on the Review of Higher Education in Nigeria also identified education as "the most powerful instrument for social reform", and therefore described higher education, especially the university (sector) as the sources of intellectual power that can be mobilized for the socio-economic priorities of a nation and as places for the serious inculcation of knowledge and skills.
The governments, federal and state, embarked on developing university institutions in line with the Ashby and subsequent Commissions' reports and policies.As at today, there are well over 60 public universities (federal and state), over 40 Privately-owned ones, and close to 10 other government-owned degree awarding institutions.The increase in the number of universities, especially of late, was also partly due to sharp increase in the total number of the candidates seeking admission into the existing ones.The increase then was to a level that the existing ones could not cope with.However, generally speaking, universities are purposely established to satisfy specific and general educational needs of a nation through teaching of students, conduct of research and dissemination of knowledge together with other community service activities (NUC, 1997).The provision of the much-needed manpower to accelerate the growth and development of the economy is said to be the main relevance of University education in Nigeria (Ibukun, 1997).The goals of tertiary education in Nigeria as contained in section 6 of the National Policy on Education (1998) show that tertiary education institution should embark on teaching, research and development of programmes and maintain minimum educational standards; and seek inter-institutional cooperation and dedicated service to the community.These are normally set down by the governments and proprietors the world over in the Acts, Decrees and/or instruments establishing them.The statutes of all of the universities are also clear on this.In the revised edition of the National Policy on Education also, the Federal Government affirms the seven (7) aims of university education as: (f) To forge and cement national unity; and (g) To promote national and international understanding and interactions (FGN, 2004) According to Fadahunsi (1985) and Erero (2006), the policy document expects tertiary educational institutions to pursue these goals through teaching, research, the dissemination of existing and new information, the pursuit of service to the community, and being a storehouse of knowledge.From the point of view of universities established in a region, the objective is usually strengthened, according to Aboyade (1982), by the prospect that it might service to enrich the culture of the region and give a more willing ear to the economic and social needs of its people in the fields like agriculture, industry, commerce, government and public administration.As a rider, he stressed that a regional university can seek creative innovation in designing new teaching programmes, trying out new methods of learning, undertaking specialized research and experimenting with alternative styles of staff-student management and living.In other words, a special attention is paid to problems that are of peculiar or significant concern to the region of its location.
Towards this end, it is important to stress that universities should systematically identify and analyse their objectives in the light of the mission or goal statements handed down to them by their proprietors, assess realistically available resources to prosecute their activities, set targets based on acceptable standards and ensure continuous monitoring and evaluation of results and provide for feed-back (Fadahunsi, 1985).Some expectations were also placed on the universities, especially in providing appropriate leadership; and according to Adeniyi (2011), committing itself to the understanding of its social context and values being the capstone of tertiary and other educational institutions; seeking to respond to the changing needs of its society; and challenging, through intellectual investigations and discourse, the knowledge and beliefs of the time and hence serving as society's conscience.The question that follows is "if the universities are expected to be the nation's conscience as well as providing appropriate leadership, how well have they been able to do these?Any attempt to provide answer(s) to this question; one would need to examine the various institutional arrangements within which the universities are expected to provide the "right leadership".In a short-while, we will be examining the administrative leadership in the university system with the assumption that for a system to provide leadership to the larger society, it must be able to reflect these leadership models in its own administration.We intend to specifically look at mentoring or mentorship culture among the professional administrators as one of the leadership skills.Other skills are delegation, achievement recognition, trust building, and inclusion to mention a few which are not dwelt upon in this work.We took up this study recognizing the fact that for universities to achieve specific or general educational objectives, a necessary condition is an effectively and efficiently run system that decides upon and implements appropriate academic policies and administers related services with a minimum of economic waste and maximum utilization of human talent and material resources.These call for well nurtured human resources; both teaching and non-teaching staff, but of interests to this work the professional administrators who make up the policy implementation machinery of a university system.

The Changing Philosophy of University Education
The academic tradition and philosophy of university education have kept changing when we look at what operates today compared to what it was in 1948 when the University College, Ibadan came into being or even in 1962 when University of Ife was founded.They were designed to cater for educated elite and in effect as a deliberate policy, keeping under check their student population.Universities in Nigeria have developed, through a process of evolution from an instrument for producing intellectual elite; they are fast becoming the means of giving mass education to youths (Aborisade, 1981).According to Aborisade, with a change in the philosophy, university goals are no longer homogenous but rather cater for the intellectually gifted and those that have interest but lack any serious intellectual capacity and assist them to develop their intellectual capacity to the greatest extent that they desire.To achieve this, the combined efforts of the teaching force and the enabling administrators, both of whom must be aware of the goals of the university, will be required especially in developing complementary strategies towards it.With the changing philosophy of university education and the rising student population and the strain on municipal facilities, a variety of problems are created which administrators battle with on a day-to-day basis.Beyond student population is the expansion in the number of workers (academic and administrative) requiring the identification of better methods, new and modern administrative devices and making of administrative tasks more productive in managing and sustaining the growth in number.

University Administration and its Uniqueness
Generally speaking, the concept and the need for administration are derived from the concept of formal organisations.Within a formal organization, an administrator is known to be concerned essentially with planning, organizing, directing, staffing, coordinating, supervising, reporting and budgeting which are referred to as the general guides to sound administrative practice or traditionally the management functions.
These are instruments that are used to target ten critical spheres of tertiary institution management.According to Asupoto (2006), these include management of the academic programmes, committee system, personnel affairs, student affairs, reward system, managers, financial, uncertainty, physical facilities, and welfare.
The administrative structure of a university system is in many respects similar to the hierarchical structure of other organizations such as the civil service, a business concern, the church, and such others as the functional positions of authority and the channels of communication are shown in the organizational structure.Such a structure shows the work-relationship, especially indicating who should do what and where within the administration.
There are some peculiarities (however) in university administration which distinguish it from general administration (Adamolekun, 1985), describing it as a profession in a class by itself.Ojuawo (1981), comparing the university organization to the rest of the public service, he described it as being unique in its goals that are usually ambiguous and contested and because of its internal self-government which makes the administration less formal, more in-house, more flexible in its accountability, and consumers of the administrative product coming from within.Comparing the university system with other arms of the public sector, Aborisade (1981) asserts that: Criticism of administrative inaction or inefficiency come daily whereas the other arms of the public sector have their clients located far afield from the theatre of the operation.The unique position of universities paradoxically confers on its administration the need to be politically conscious and perform even better than those being supervised daily by political overlords.

The University Community
In this sub-section, discussions shall be with particular reference to where power lies within the system, who the decision makers are within the university and nature and structure of governance of a university.The university community is a community of scholars which mission or functions have been discussed earlier in this work.There are two principal organs charged with the internal government of the typical Nigerian university system and they are: the Governing Council and the Senate.Others are secondary organs (convocation and congregation) and subsidiary units (Committees of Council, Committees of Senate, Faculty Board and Departmental Board) which functions and responsibilities are germane to effective and efficient university administration.It is in a very broad sense accountable to the nation through the University Council for the manner in which it organizes its internal administration.This means that, all university authorities: the Vice Chancellor, the Senate, etc, are under the general control of the Council.Membership of Council is partly appointive (by government) and partly elective (by both academic and senior non-academic members of the university community).The membership of Senate is drawn entirely from the academic community as it is partly filled by rank/position and partly elective from both the Faculty Boards and Congregation.
Subject to the general responsibility of the Council for the efficient management of the university, the Senate's statutory responsibilities include the determination of the curriculum, prescription of the admission requirements, determination of academic grading policy and indeed award of degrees (Omotosho, 1985).The Vice Chancellor, who is the Chief Executive, is also the accounting officer of the university.He is also the academic head of the university as he takes responsibility for the academic goals of the university and for the improvement of the curriculum.He has specified authority to maintain the efficiency and good order of the university within the organizational structure making all other officers of the administration responsible to him.Despite this structure, the administration operates in line with the policy decision of the Council and Senate and recommendations and advice from the committees.
Through the university's use of the committee system, the delegation of the above responsibilities is effected with the faculty system serving as the most creative aspect of the university delegation of authority (Omotosho, Ibid).The Dean, who is elected by his colleagues, is the Chief Academic Officer of the faculty, representing the Vice Chancellor.He chairs the Faculty Board which responsibilities include the development of the curriculum, the administration of examinations and determination of who gets which degrees from the faculty.
The Registrar is the principal administrative officer of the university.He is responsible to the Vice Chancellor for his day-to-day administrative work.He takes custody, upkeeps and maintains the university records, property and regulations.He plays important roles in policy implementation and operates within the policy decision of the Council, Senate and other bodies.He is also the Secretary to Council, Senate, Congregation and Convocation, serving at advisory capacity in all committees of Council and Senate as well as other administrative committees relating to university rules, regulations and procedures.The Registrar is represented at the faculty by the Faculty Officer as Chief Administrative Officer of the faculty and the Secretary to the Faculty Board.The Faculty Officer/Secretary keeps records and interprets faculty and university regulation as the "mini-registrar".The office of the so-called "mini-registrar" is normally occupied by a professional administrator.Such an administrator is a staff of the Registry Department.Included in this group are such others in some other component units different from the faculty office but who are responsible for the routine administration of the university, outside finance matters.The registry staff or the so-called professionals are responsible for the secretariat services of university committees, the implementation of their decision, and the collection, analysis and storage of relevant statistics and information (NUC, 1997).

Who Is a Professional University Administrator?
The Obafemi Awolowo University Law of 1970 for instance defines "the administrative staff" as those persons in the employ of the university, other than the academic staff, who hold administrative, professional or technical posts designated by the Council as senior posts.The technical problem with this definition is that professional staffs like Accountants, Planning Officers, Engineers and even Medical Doctors are covered in the definition.
However, the professional or career administrator refers to the retinue of administrative staff who are responsible to the Registrar for the day-to-day running of the university either in the Registry or component units of the university like Colleges, Faculties and other units of the university that are not purely administrative (Erero, 2006).Anybody in the class is a higher management personnel that should be able to talk with understanding about the whole range of activities which constitute the administration (Adamolekun, 1985).This definition excludes career-line like the executive officers, secretariat staff, clerical and messengerial staff.Such an administrator holds forth for the Registrar wherever he/she is posted to perform his/her administrative duties, especially recording of decisions taken at committee meetings and implementation of the same.He also deals mainly with written documents in form of rules, regulations, procedures, minutes, which are the records he keeps and applies when the need arises.He is however expected to apply the rules and interpret same, but in the less applicable cases, the administrator's expertise and experience in interpretation are drawn upon to satisfy the particular case and still in line with the general principle underlining the particular regulation.
The administrator is particularly vulnerable because his total effectiveness may in the long run be assessed on his ability to proffer sound advice.It is the duty of the administrator to give the necessary guidance, whether verbal or written, towards problem-solving.In doing this, he uses his professional expertise gathered from his experience.He should ensure that his advice is constructive, not based on personal opinion and arrived at by logical and rational argument based on the available facts of the case.It must also be related to what has happened before and to what may occur in future.In addition to all above, whatever advice offered, he must be guided by precedent and draw attention to the relevant rules and regulations or earlier decisions on the same or similar matters (Akenzua, 1988).
If it is true that administration depends, to a very large extent, on experience as this guides the administrator in advising the most appropriate line of action in a given matter/case, what then happens to an administrator that is not taken through the "training mill", by a way of mentoring, to gather the required experience while progressing in his career?This is our area of concern in this paper.If an advice is given, accepted and applied but does not work out as expected, he is blamed for giving "bad" advice and vice versa.If the administrator fails to give advice, then he is failing in his duty.If he gives advice and it is continually rejected then it is likely that either he is out-of-tune with the system or that there is something wrong with the system.It may also be that he is not giving careful enough consideration to the various aspects of the problem before rushing to give advice (Akenzua, Ibid).
Towards this end, we must mention briefly the qualities expected of a professional university administrator.On the whole, he must be one that can create a good image for the university administration.According to Biobaku (1975), he must be type that will be up-to-date in his awareness of what is happening in the university; aware of the problems of higher education and of education generally and public affairs within the community; has special or general interest in his routine job in connection with other members of the university community; efficient in the routine assignment; and able to communicate effectively in writing and in speaking to enable him make tremendous contribution in the policy making processes without being obtrusive.

The Registry as Administrative Support Machinery
It has been stressed somewhere above that the Registrar is the Secretary to the University Council and also to the Senate.He implements both Council and Senate policies, the effectiveness of which rests on the administrative support machinery provided by the Registry.The Registry is sub-divided into administrative units, called the Directorates.Each directorate is headed by a senior administrator designated "Deputy Registrar" or in some cases "Senior Deputy Registrar" who is assisted by administrative officers of various cadres.This is the class of group referred to in this work as the professional university administrators.
Find below the table showing the career structure for officers on administrative, executive and clerical cadres and salary structure as operated in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

Strains and Stresses on the Administrative System
Basically, stress or strain is a feeling of pressure experienced when one looses confidence in his/her capacity to cope with a situation or level of demand.In the words of McGrath (1970), stress is a perceived substantial imbalance between demand and response capacity, under conditions where failure to meet the demand has important perceived consequences.To Kroemer, et.al (2001) however, there are three major aspects to stress: (i) job demands which depend on the tasks, the task environment and the conditions of the task are considered to be the job stressors; (ii) a person's capability to fulfill the demands of the job; and (iii) the person's attitude (influenced by physical and psychological well-being) which must match the demands.
Arising from these, a system is stressed and strained due to frustrating and/or unsatisfying internal state imposed by the rising demand (as the case with the university administrators) and lack of individual knowledge and skills and coping resources, all combined suggesting that the system is at a cross road in attaining its goals .The fact remains that university administration is expected to provide the enabling environment and the material facilities to research, teach or disseminate it, and preserve it with the professional administrators and support staff playing a critical role in achieving all these.The administrative system is stressed and strained because the university management has failed in its strategic planning efforts to achieve all above 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 involves identifying and preparing suitable employees to replace key players within the system as their tenures expire.Two major issues can be stressed here: a.That the steady growth of student population and workforce has put a challenge on university administration and administrators and which has gone to the very foundation of university in terms of the quality of administration and overall effectiveness expected of the university as an institution.
b.A leader who fails to prepare tomorrow's leaders and professionals is not responsible, no matter the effort put into whatever assignment.It is within this context that we find it imperative to consider mentoring culture as one of the salient issues in the administration of higher education in Nigeria but with particular reference to the University system.
It has been acknowledged by many that the culture of mentoring that can help in ensuring the transfer of skills and effectiveness of succession scheme, especially among the professional administrators is at its lowest ebb in the University system.This has been a recurring decimal at several fora without any cogent step taken to formalize it.At such fora, emphasis is often placed on the understanding the importance of mentorship, management's commitment to formalizing mentoring of administrators and supporting staff as a career development effort, the need to embrace the obligation to serve as mentors, and lastly to actively provide appropriate mentoring opportunities to enable all members of the group to develop professionally.According to Okurame (2011), the renewed interest in mentoring in the Nigerian context is the result of recent human resource problems which are reasoned to be amenable to mentoring.The need for mentoring in every segment of the workforce in Nigeria is underscored by laxities and poor performances in hitherto areas of excellence, he added.In other words, there has been a noticeable decline in the capacity of the workforce widening the gap between skills and job demand among young individuals, which has raised concerns about the dearth of professional guidance from veterans in Nigerian workplaces (ibid.).This takes us to the concept of mentoring or mentorship.

The Concept of Mentorship
Mentorship or mentoring is as old as history.It has existed in a variety of cultures.The word is Greek in origin as it originated from Greek mythology and the story of Odysseus, who, when setting off on his journey to Troy, entrusted his friend Mentor with the care and education of his son Telemachus.Legend has it that Odysseus instructed Mentor to 'Tell him all that you know' unwittingly setting the standard for aspiring mentors (Bayley, et. al., 2004).They defined mentoring as a transformational process that seeks to help individuals develop and use knowledge to improve themselves on an ongoing basis.It is further described as a professional dialogue that encourages reflection and development, signposting mentees to other sources of help as required.Bozeman and Feeney (2007) defined it as a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.They also defined it as a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development.In the same vein, Freeman (1998) simplified the subject by defining it as a way of helping another understand more fully and learn comprehensively from their day-to-day experience.According to Carmin (1988), mentoring is a complex, interactive process occurring between individuals of different levels of experience and expertise which incorporates interpersonal or psychological development, and socialization functions into the relationship.On the whole, it is basically the process whereby an experienced and highly empathic person, called the mentor, assists and guides another individual, called the protégé (male) or protégée (female) and in recent years a mentee in the development of their skills, knowledge and attitudes and their competence, in the workplace.That is, the experienced individual passes on know-how to the mentee through a face-to-face long-term relationship between them to foster the professional and personal development of the latter.In this case, according to East (1995), the mentor represents knowledge, reflector, insight, understanding, good advice, determination and planning, qualities that cannot be mastered alone.It is therefore a mechanism for empowering the mentee with the knowledge and strategies that will allow the person to achieve his or her full potential.That is, an important tool to help employees grow, develop and perform their ultimate best (Baah-Oddom, 2013).
The essence of a good mentoring scheme/programme is the development of the mentee which however is affected by the quality of the interpersonal relationship between the mentor and mentee as underlined by the behaviour, attitudes and/or values that the mentee can emulate in a mentor.The fact then remains that a mentee usually appreciates the success of his mentors, and this raises his expectations of success thereby resulting in increased motivation to achieve.It also depends on the social facilitation, which Zajonc, et al (1969), cited in Balogun and Okurame (2011), described as inclination for people to be aroused into better performance of well-learned tasks in the presence of others.In other words, according to Balogun and Okurame, social facilitation (often) occurs when a protégé performs his tasks in the presence of a mentor, with the presence of the mentor on such occasion serving as catalyst for better performance on a task.
The effectiveness of mentoring programmes depends to a large extent on the ability and willingness of the mentor to value the mentee as a person and treat him as such, develop mutual trust and respect, maintain confidentiality, help the mentee to solve his/her problems and not to be giving mere instructions and pay attention to the mentee's growth and development in the system, among others.However, a mentor must be a friend, a role model, a confidant, somebody willing to help others, and a nurturer of possibilities, and whose success is measured by his capability or ability in developing management talents in his mentee.The focus of the mentor must be to develop the whole person.Assuming the role of mentee requires specific characteristics on the part of individuals.Some of the required features are ability to communicate and work cooperatively with others, desire for achieving specific goal(s), ability to know when to ask for help and a sense of personal responsibility and commitment (Ayinde, 2011).He must also be goal-oriented, seeking challenges and taking initiative.He must not be too self-promoting, too busy or overly dependent (Mirza, 2007).
Using Kram (1983 and1985) as guide, Akinbobola (2011) mentioned four (4) phases of mentoring relationship which are initiation, cultivation, separation and redefinition.The first, according to him, is the initiation phase which is merely the mentor's recognition of the protégé's potential for raining and the protégé recognizes the mentor as a source of support and guidance.The second is cultivation phase where the mentor provides challenging work for the protégé and the protégé's work is recognized not for its own merit but as an input of the mentor's instruction, support and advice to assist the protégé in gaining confidence, new attitudes, values and styles of operation.The third phase which is referred to as the breakup or separation phase.This is where both the mentor and the protégé move apart with the latter gaining independence/autonomy.When the relationship is successful, both parties continue or maintain the relationship culminating in the fourth phase called redefinition phase.The redefinition phase is a peer relationship where the mentor continues to be the supporter, takes pride in the protégé's accomplishment and where the protégé responds with gratitude for the early years but is no more dependent (ibid).
Mentoring serves a number of purposes.Savage, et. al. (2004) listed the purposes to include to empower new employees; to continue organizational growth and renewal; to promote organizational satisfaction through what has been described in recent literature as a dialectical relationship with peers and senior employees of the organization that can foster a sense of community; to introduce new employees to manage organizational cultures and definitions of work responsibilities; to provide opportunities for interaction between junior and senior employees to facilitate mutual respect and avoid counterproductive divisions between senior and young managers; to meet "entry level survival needs" of new employees by providing information about organization social-political culture; and to assist new employees to begin to develop, and balance their commitments to working in the organization.Citing Kram (1983 and1985) however, Waters et.al. (2002) summarized the purposes/functions of mentoring relationship into two separate but interrelated parts.These are career functions and psychosocial support functions.They explained further, by citing Aryee, et. al. (1996), emphasizing that career-related support facilitates career advancement by increasing a protégé's visibility in the organization and by improving the protégé's knowledge of how to effectively navigate the corporate world while the psychosocial function provides emotional and psychological support to the protégé and serves to enhance confidence in the protégé's professional role, using the words of Olian, et. al (1993).Discussing the benefits, they also cited Chao, et. al (1992) to stress that career-related function may lead to different career benefits such as promotion and salary increases while the psychosocial support function may indirectly facilitate the protégé's career by improving self-esteem and perceived competence in one's professional role.

The Typology of Mentoring Relationship
Mentoring relationship vary from organization to organization as defined by the type of relationship that is in effect in such organization.Mentoring relationships can therefore be classified broadly into formal and informal relationships.The formal relationship, which can be part of an employee's orientation or career development programme (Ojewunmi, 2013;Fajana and Gbajumo-Sheriff, 2013), involves a structured process and supported by the concerned organization with a target population or group of professionals.This type of relationship has specific expectations and guidelines.A formal mentoring relationship is an excellent strategy for embedding the norms and values central to the culture of an institution in the protégé's consciousness and value system and communicating the message that adopting these norms and values is critical to the protégé's success (Polverini, 2007).Under a formal mentoring programe, employees have the opportunity of participating in an organized mentoring program as usually managed by a program administrator or a committee in some cases.Such a committee or administrator is usually charged with the responsibility of reviewing the mentoring profiles and making matches based on areas for development, mentor strengths, overall experience, skill set, location and objectives being targeted.The informal relationship involves a process developed between the individuals and not supported by the organizations.That is, a culture of mentoring is developed but it does not have formal mentoring arrangement in place.Such an organization may even put in place tools and resources and encourage managers to accept mentoring requests for the subordinates.
Further on the typology, we need to touch two others from the point of view of the variety of specific objectives mentoring programmes serve, including acclimation of new employees, skill development, employee retention and diversity enhancement.The two types to be discussed are new-hire mentorship and high-potential mentorship.
Under the new-hire mentorship, mentoring programmes are designed such that a new employee is integrated more quickly in the organization.The employee is usually paired with more experienced people in order to obtain information, good examples and advice as they move up the ladder in the organization.The whole idea is that it allows for career growth as the employee is gradually introduced into the organization with his life being shaped by the organization's culture and operations having been attached to an experienced member of the organization.
Next to this is high-potential mentorship which programmes are used to develop an up-coming employee that has potential to assume leadership roles.The employee (protégé and protégée) is paired with a senior individual (or individuals) for a series of career-coaching interactions in different or disparate areas of specialization for short periods of time.The whole idea is that, within the short period, the protégé/protégée is expected to move round the special areas to learn the procedures and methods in those areas with the assistance of the supervisor.
To close this section, it is worth mentioning that a number of models have been used while examining the mentoring relationship.Buell (2004), for instance, asserts that mentoring relationships can develop under models like cloning model, nurturing model, friendship model and apprenticeship model.According to him, cloning model is about the mentor working towards producing a duplicate copy of him or herself.The nurturing model takes more of a "parent figure who creates a safe, open environment in which mentee can both learn and try things for him or herself".While the friendship model, according to him, is more peers "rather than being involved in a hierarchical relationship", the apprenticeship model is nothing but purely about the professional relationship, i.e. less personal and social attachments.

Mentoring Techniques
In modern organizations, there are different techniques that can be used by mentors depending on the situation and the mindset of the mentee.According to Aubrey and Cohen (1995), the five most commonly used techniques among mentors are accompanying, sowing, catalyzing, showing and harvesting.As described by them, accompanying technique, involves taking part in the learning process side-by-side with the learner/mentee.Sowing is also described as the technique used when it is clear to the mentor that what he wants to teach may not be understood or be acceptable to the mentee at first but will make sense and have value to the mentee only when the situation requires it.By using catalyzing technique, the scholars mean that the mentor chooses to plunge the mentee right into change, provoking a different way of thinking, a change in identity or a re-ordering of values.Next to this is showing technique which involves developing a mentee by demonstrating an activity or a skill.The last is harvesting technique which is nothing but the technique used to create awareness of what was learned by experience and drawing conclusion therefrom.

Obafemi Awolowo University (Ile-Ife) as a Case Study
Having understood mentorship as one of the processes of succession planning in an organization/institution, it is necessary to delve into the mentorship culture and programme design of Obafemi Awolowo University, particularly among the professional administrators in the Registry Department.As gathered through personal observation, it was revealed that there was no formal mentoring programme as administrators are left to learn on the job with little or no mentorship.When recruited, it was gathered that they usually found ways of getting information on their own in order to enhance their job performance.This has been raised and discussed at various fora without any change.
We intend to cover four major areas in this work.The first is to briefly highlight the factors inhibiting the establishment of mentorship programmes by relying on the empirical data collected during a study carried out in 2010.The other three areas are based on ideas borrowed from other authorities which are mainly to identify the areas where mentoring is required, advance necessary conditions to be met towards initiating a mentoring programme for professional administrators, and lastly to discuss the developmental benefits of (formal) mentoring; all through on-the-table research method.

Identified Factors Inhibiting Development of Mentorship Programmes
Despite the fact that some respondents expressed it that they were not aware of the challenges since there was no formal programmes in place, some were clear in their position agreeing to the fact that there were a number of factors inhibiting the development of mentoring programmes among the professional administrators in the Registry Department.Using both questionnaire and interview, the factors identified include the fact that it is not the culture in the department and even in the university as a whole; pressure of work; pace of work and non-availability of time; fear of being in competition with people for jobs/posts; as well as lack of adequate mentoring skills, information and training.

Areas where Mentoring is Required
Basically, a university administrator is expected to perform some professional duties, which include servicing of committee meetings by taking records of the proceedings and decisions and implementing same; serving at advisory capacity at such meetings; taking custody, up-keeping and maintaining the university records, property and regulations; dealing with written documents in form of rules, regulations, procedures, and keeping and applying them when the need arises; and lastly coordinating all activities as a necessary bureaucrat.Within these duties and such others, mentoring is required in a number of areas.

Mentoring about Career and its Prospect
In the university setting, a mentor must orient a new administrator into the university's mission, vision and all aspects of university's culture, tradition, policies and procedures and assist him identify his career potentials, and expectations of how to work with colleagues generally; make him to appreciate teamwork in his career progression and help him in the workplace, make clear to him the opportunities that are available and assist him in accomplishing same, and a host of others.The door of opportunities opened to him depends mainly on his ability, confidence level, work experience, skill, knowledge, attitude, and such others built while progressing in the system.Career development of the mentee is in effect enhanced as the mentee's professional confidence is developed; professional credibility is enhanced, and so on.Generally speaking, the development of the mentee is made possible as mentors provide two broad and essential categories of functions.First, they provide career development functions which include challenging assignments, visibility to management and sponsorship.Second, they provide psychosocial functions which enhance a protégé's self-confidence and address other interpersonal concerns (Kram, 1985).

Development of Professional Identity
The role of a mentor in developing professional identity of an administrator is of immense.The mentor that assists in developing the internal sense of an emerging administrator to know what it means to be an administrator enhances the formation of the new professional identity.It is therefore imperative for the mentor to consider the stages of development of a new administrator when mentoring him because each development stage holds different challenges and benefits for the mentee.

Modeling a Healthy Lifestyle and Work-Life Balance
This area relates to balancing personal self-care and professional identity.Different scholars have placed emphasis on the need to make personal self-care a major area of any mentoring relationship.The expectation here is for the mentor to assist a mentee by mentoring him on how having a family and a career can coexist.With this, the mentee is advised on how to develop strategies for balancing family and career development.

Modeling Behaviour that Supports Professional Leadership
This is mentoring about leadership.By this, a mentor is expected to model appropriate behaviours that support professional leadership.The main objective here is to enhance the leadership skills of the new administrator as he prepares for leadership positions in the university administration.This can be done in different ways, including teaching, role modeling, provision of professional and personal guidance, socialization into the profession, and a host of others.

Mentoring to Facilitate Networking
Networking is germane to the development of an administrator's career and professional identity.A mentor can assist the mentee in facilitating and building his own (new) network.For instance, he can extend to the mentee the national/international network the mentor has been able to build over the years especially for the mentee to access resources by way of books, journals, software packages, etc, that can contribute to his career development.

Towards Initiating a Mentoring Culture
This section covers the necessary conditions to be met towards establishing a mentoring culture within an organization, and in this case among the professional administrators in the Registry Department studied.It is pertinent to start by emphasizing that informal mentoring has always been existing between the superior and the subordinate especially when the latter finds a more experienced person he/she can relate with and confide in.Such a mentoring relationship may begin when the senior person takes genuine interest in the growth and development of the subordinate or somebody he/she believes has untapped potential.This relationship may not necessarily be with somebody from the unit where he works.However, towards establishing a (formal) mentoring culture, a number of steps are pertinent.
First, the university management must conduct a need assessment and thereafter put in place formal mentoring programme and give same continuous supervision and support.Such a programme must be based on the goals and objectives of the department in particular and the university as a whole.It must also anticipate, especially for newly recruited professional administrators, the learning of organizational structure, and be provided with an overview of the department/university, division of functions, rules, policies and procedures.Others may include the work-ethic issues, the organizational culture, unwritten rules and the social aspects of the job.
Next to the formalization of the mentoring programme is the need for the university to put in place clear policy on mentorship scheme.The policy must be definite on the nature of mentor-mentee relationship, the pairing process, length of time, and qualifications and experience for a mentor.Specifically, the mentor must be someone who has acquired enough number of years of experience with up-to-date administrative skills.He must also be someone who has good background in training, development and mentoring and well versed in general practice, administration and politics.Beyond all these, he must have self-confidence, and be intuitive, accessible, a good motivator, high performer, a good teacher and able to establish a good and professional relationship.The policy must also be clear on mentoring contract and the need for both the mentor and mentee to be committed to confidentiality in the course of their interaction.Also germane to the establishment of a mentoring culture is to take decisions on those to be mentored and those to serve as mentors and provide the initial training and continuous support programme for both of them to develop their understanding of the meaning of mentoring as against other forms of support and training, develop their attitude positively to mentoring and expose them to skills for mentoring.Such training must also afford the trainees the opportunity of having clear understanding of the ethical basis for mentoring as well as working pattern/methods to reduce stress and promote constructive change.The Registry management must give attention to the would-be mentor's knowledge and skills by a way of assessment and impress it on him to address knowledge, skill and attitude gaps by embarking on professional/competency development where necessary.For continuity of support programme(s), the Staff Training and Development Unit (STDU) should be the coordinating unit and report periodically to the Registry Management Committee.
While developing a mentoring scheme, monitoring evaluation and quality control mechanisms must be built into it.What this will first require of the management is to determine the evaluative outcomes for protégés, mentors and the department/institution.These can be from the perspectives of the satisfaction with the mentoring relationship/process, knowledge or skills acquired by both mentee and mentor, the transfer of learning to the assignment/job, and lastly the impact on the performance as measured by visible changes and improvements in the mentee's assignment.We must not however lose sight of the fact that changes and improvements on the mentee's job performance cannot be attributed wholly to mentoring.
Arising from the formal mentoring programme, in addition to monthly workshops, a new administrator may be assigned to a senior colleague to run a pilot first.The use of new administrators is suggested as they are new in the system and they will be willing to make it work.While assigning him, it is necessary to ensure they match each other in terms of need and timeframe, as this may affect the outcome of mentoring from individual mentor and mentee and institutional perspectives.The mentor must be available to provide support during the mentoring relationship.This may however require drawing up a timetable on schedule of meetings agreeable to the two parties.

Developmental Benefits of (Formal) Mentoring
It is worthwhile to ask why an organization needs a mentoring programme.What also do the stakeholders stand to benefit?The benefits of mentoring can be discussed from three perspectives: the mentor, mentee and organizational.These are the stakeholders in the process and they all stand to benefit in a way.
The benefits to the mentee include increased professional opportunities and collegial networks, growth of professional knowledge and skill development, career advancement and more effective performance (Ragins and Cotton, 1999).Summarizing the mentee's benefits according to various scholars in the field, Ojedokun (2011) listed such benefits to include increased technical and professional knowledge, increased competence, increased confidence, a chance to observe and emulate role models, higher performance and productivity, career development, increased likelihood of success, better insights into the "informal" organizational rules, awareness of new idea and new contacts, a sense of security, decreased stress, expanded networks, leadership development, and guidance in dealing with problem situations.Others, according to Ojedokun, include increased job satisfaction, higher career satisfaction, elevated promotions and pay, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviour.
According to Noe (1988) and Mullen and Noe (1999),the mentoring relationship offers the manager (mentor) improved job performance, career success and revitalization, recognition by others, a loyal base of support from the mentee and a sense of personal fulfillment and satisfaction.It also affords the mentor the exposure to new ideas and technologies while developing new professional and organizational contacts.Others, according to Ojedokun (ibid), include opportunity to model productive corporate citizenship, feeling of value and/or a sense of being trusted by the organization, broadened sense of responsibility and satisfaction from sharing knowledge, experience, and contributions to the success of a trainee who might eventually become a colleague.
The organization usually has its share of benefits in increased productivity and job satisfaction, development of organizational culture and commitment and enhanced communication and relationships across different levels of the organization (Murray andOwen, 1991 andLong, 1997), and in ensuring effective succession planning as future leaders are developed for survival and prosperity.Leadership succession management is a strategic, systematic and deliberate activity to ensure an organization's future capability to fill leadership vacancies, without patronage or favouritism and within the framework of the merit principle (Blunt, 2001).The focus here will be directed at making contingency plans to develop internal capability in readiness for smooth staff replacement or in a more technical term, succession planning, necessary to develop to strategic direction and continuing growth and development of the institution.

Concluding Remarks
We have thus far been able to discuss the need for instituting 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.Particular attention was also drawn to the importance and uniqueness of university administration and administrators, the culture of mentoring among the professional administrators, areas where mentoring is required, what it would involve to establish the culture, and what the developmental benefits of (formal) mentoring are.Towards this end, assuming the critical nature of mentoring relationship to meeting university needs, it is pertinent to suggest that

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The university management must place emphasis on transformational leadership mainly to stimulate a dynamic relationship among the professional administrators.

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The university management must create opportunities for senior and junior colleagues that will support collaborative efforts in solving problems. It must encourage management training programmes and /or seminars and workshops geared towards mentoring practices that will promote innovations, service quality and continual improvement.This may involve external skilled mentoring facilitators.

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Performance appraisal of (senior) professional administrators should include a section where their mentoring abilities can be evaluated.
(a) To contribute to national development through high-level relevant manpower training; (b) To develop and inculcate proper values for the survival of the individual and the society; (c) To develop the intellectual capability of individuals to understand and appreciate their local and external environments; (d) To acquire both physical and intellectual skills which will enable individuals to be self-reliant and useful members of the society; (e) To promote and encourage scholarship and community service;

Table 1 .
Career structure for officers on administrative, executive and clerical cadres and salary structure