Paper Title
Achieving an Effective Mentoring Relationship in Vocational Education and Training

Abstract
In Hong Kong, vocational education and training (VET) has been playing a vital role in broadening the learning opportunities for school leavers and in‐service personnel as well as nurturing the requisite uman capital in support of Hong Kong’s development (Education Bureau, 2015). Although a robust model of vocational pedagogy is still under researched and undertheorised (UNESCO, 2014), mentoring has been long employed as a learning and teaching strategy to develop skills in workplaces. Successful mentoring very much depends on the quality of the relationship between mentor and mentee. This study aims to identify the essential elements for achieving an effective mentoring relationship. The findings would be a pilot study for developing further case studies for training on workplace mentoring in different vocations. Apart from reviewing relevant articles on this area, four interviews were conducted in order to solicit information on authentic workplace mentoring cases which are valuable information for potential workplace mentors. Four interviewees were experienced incumbent workplace mentors invited from the industry partners of a vocational institute. A list of well‐structured questions was used to probe the information during the interviews. In conclusion, to achieve a quality experience in mentoring, mentors should have the core competencies such as understanding others, self‐awareness, organizational know‐how, commitment to own learning, relationship management, effective communication skill and desire to develop others. It was found that the workplace mentors in this study have similar opinion on such essential core competencies for a mentor. All of them also acknowledged that a mentor’s positive attitudes and key skills as well as a mentee’s behaviours and willingness to participate during the mentoring process are significant factors in achieving an effective mentoring relationship. Index Terms - Mentoring, Pastoral Care, Guidance and Counseling