The parties involved in the mentoring process are mentors, mentees and the implementing body (Academic Mentoring Committee).

• The Dean of the FOMUP (Chair)
• The Director of the academic mentoring programme (appointed by the faculty board)
• One senior academic staff member of FOMUP (appointed by the faculty board)
• The Director of the Staff Development Center (SDC), University of Peradeniya

Secretarial help will be provided by a management assistant (from the Dean’s office)

• Facilitating the mentoring programme (identifying mentors and mentees and paring them)
• Organizing training programs for both mentors and mentees
• Maintaining a mentoring webpage in the University website
• Facilitating communication among mentees and mentors
• Instituting a system for recognizing and rewarding the mentors
• Monitoring and evaluating the mentoring programme

Training will be available for all mentors and mentees via the Staff Development Center, University of Peradeniya. It will be arranged periodically.

Traditionally, a ‘mentor’ is a more experienced member of staff who seeks to pass their skills, expertise and knowledge of the workplace on to a (usually) less experienced member of staff, with a view to fostering their development. It should be a safe, non-judgmental relationship that facilitates a wide range of learning, experimentation and development.

The mentor in this programme will be a senior academic staff member (in the category of senior lecturer, professor or senior professor) with at least three years of experience in the University system. Academic staff will be invited to be a part of the mentoring pool and will be given training on mentoring.

If any of the mentees has selected a mentor who is already not in the mentoring pool, then those mentors will be registered and training on mentoring will be offered to them.

The mentoring relationship will be flexible. Mentoring requirements change over the course of a developing career and the appropriate mentors may change as needed.

The committee will identify new staff who are to be provided with a mentor and pair them with a suitable mentor within three months of recruitment. When a continuing member of staff requests a mentor, the same procedure will be followed. A mentees’ and mentors’ application form will be made available on the webpage in order to collect relevant details.

Upon assumption of duties of a new recruit, they will be asked to identify a mentor of their choice within a period of 6 months, with the guidance of his/her head of the department (HoD) if necessary.

Mentees will have the freedom to select the mentors. It should be acknowledged that no single mentor is expected to provide mentorship across all areas of mentoring, and therefore, multiple mentoring partnerships are encouraged. Mentors can be selected from within the faculty or outside the faculty.

The mentee should inform the names of the selected mentors to the academic mentoring committee through the Head of the Department.

All mentors are expected to arrange with mentees allocated to them the appointments for discussions throughout the year. Meetings should normally take place at least twice per year. However, meetings can take place as and when needed, but not less than twice a year.

The mentors and mentees will be given feedback forms to be filled at each visit and they will be collected by the mentoring committee. This information will be confidential and will be used only to evaluate and improve the programme.

Decisions on the length of the mentoring programme will be determined by individual needs. However, as a guideline, a scheme should last for a period of up to three years unless a change is needed, and not less than six months.