By Saheed Ibrahim
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Governments and proprietors of schools have been urged to incorporate mentorship programmes into secondary school curriculum.
The Ondo State Coordinator, Young African Leaders Initiative, YALI Network, Ayodeji Oladimeji, recommended this while speaking with The Hope on connecting young people with career success.
Oladimeji added that Nigeria must be intentional about the growth of her young minds, adding that having school mentorship programmes will help the students in their developmental process.
“Mentorship is a relationship that exists between two individuals. The first person is a mentor with vast experience, and the second is a mentee with less experience.
“According to Bob Proctor, a mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you than you see in yourself and helps bring it out of you.” The “bringing it out” requires some essential processes. Those processes could be termed mentorship programmes.
“Incorporating mentorship programmes into secondary schools will add more value to what students get from their secondary school teachings. It will also enable them to build soft skills, which, most times, people struggle to learn, but in their case, they will learn it fast and early in their lives.
“Mentorship programmes will assist in directing students’ focus into what is profitable. Also, mentoring programmes will give students access to mentors with cutting-edge experiences and allow the students to avoid common errors that others without mentors make.
“It will enable them to learn relevant skills that will give them competitive advantages and open their eyes to what is happening globally, and they will be able to compete with their mates from other parts of the world.
“Mentorship programmes for secondary school students will inform their present decision(s), and it will translate to what becomes of them in the future.”
The YALI Ondo Coordinator stressed that the programmes would not only give the students direction in their academic pursuits but also their behaviour and other engagements.
“It will enable students to have organised life that will bring about tremendous successes, with its ripple effects cutting across all aspects of life,” he concluded.
