Makerere University mentorship and the performance of academic staff, 2010-2020

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the existing mentorship among academic staff at Makerere University and how it can systematically be enforced as a mechanism to enhance academic staff performance. It also examined how mentorship is undertaken by academic staff in selected colleges, the challenges it faces at Makerere University and how mentorship can be improved on to enhance staff performance. The study used a case study design with a qualitative research approach for data collection, analysis and interpretation where Makerere University was the area of study with the academic staff being the study population from the College of Health Sciences (CHS), the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS) and the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES). Academic staff were designated in the ranks of Professors, Associate Professors, Lecturers, Teaching Assistants and Graduate Fellows. It used a sample size of 36 participants who were selected through purposive sampling, employed interviews with interview guides with open ended questions for data collection. The key research findings revealed that mentorship was undertaken informally based on mutual interest and respect between junior and senior academic staff. It also discovered that mentorship of academic staff was also currently undertaken through research projects organized by senior academic staff, research grants conducted in different colleges like CHUSS or CHS, orientation and induction programs and graduate programs like Masters and PhDs. The study concluded that mentorship among academic staff was largely informal and was mostly based on mutual relationships, interests and respect between senior and junior academic staff. It recommended that formal structures which facilitate academic staff mentorship should be put in place at Makerere University to improve on mentorship of academic staff to enhance staff performance. The main contribution of this study is that it addressed the knowledge gap on the status of mentorship and how it was used as a mechanism to enhance performance of academic staff at Makerere University, identified ways to strengthen and improve on the practice of mentorship of academic staff in institutions of higher learning in Uganda and also other non-academic organizations in Uganda and other developing countries globally, it has also increased awareness of the importance of mentorship of academic staff in regard to performance enhancement.