The SForD-TP Project : promoting school-based mentoring in initial teacher education at the University of Malta

Abstract

The first instances of mentoring in the teaching profession – which eventually grew to cover all phases of teacher education (i.e., preservice, induction and continued professional development) – occurred in the early 1970s in the United States, followed closely by Europe (Kerry & Shelton Mayes, 1995). In the UK, in particular, the rapid growth in the early 1990s of school-based mentoring by teachers during initial teacher education (ITE) was propelled by a political decision to move the preparation of future teachers away from higher education (HE) and locate it in schools (Kerry & Shelton Mayes, 1995). Roughly at that time, Sultana (1995) made a plea to introduce mentoring in the ITE programmes organised by the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta. His intention, however, was to recognise and utilise the situational expertise of teachers in schools rather than to eliminate ITE from HE (see Sultana, 1995). There was in fact one notable attempt in the early 1990s to move the Faculty in this direction with a mentoring programme designed for students specializing in primary education, but in spite of the largely positive results the initiative met a natural death when the requested support structures to sustain this programme failed to materialize (see Azzopardi & Bonnici, 2000). Since then, to the best of our knowledge, the Faculty has effectively continued to marginalize or ignore what skilled and competent personnel in schools have to offer in the preparation of future teachers. That is until very recently.