Abstract:

Published by The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for sustainable development of a global partnership. SDG 4 calls for ensuring 'inclusive and equitable quality education' and promoting 'lifelong learning opportunities for all'. Therefore, higher education faces fundamental questions about re-skilling and updating people's competencies and ways of pursuing a good life without compromising future generations' ability to meet their needs. This calls for creation of pedagogical solutions for acquiring key competencies of 21st century, such as sustainable lifestyles, work, and habitat, whilst utilizing renewable resources.
We propose utilizing mentoring as a tool promoting sustainable quality lifelong education. As mentoring has been widely recognized as a vital part of the process of professional growth of people working in higher education, in our study we explored its value as a tool for professional growth and development of senior university lecturers.
In the autoethnographic study, the data was gathered in reflective narratives compiled by two senior university lecturers taking part in a mentorship intensive training program as part of Ulysses University activities in January 2023. Through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) the dyadic relationship of a mentor-mentee was analyzed.
The findings revealed that through the dyadic relationship of mentor-mentee, both parties identified development both on a professional and personal level. The main themes identified by the mentee were: gaining professional confidence, developing the knowledge and expertise, sharing experiences, finding a safe and non-judgmental space to share challenges. The main themes identified by the mentor were: opportunity to pass on the knowledge and experience, developing active listening skills, ability to develop trust through creating safe and non-judgmental space for mutual sharing and learning. In addition, both the mentee and the mentor highlighted the creation of networking and research collaboration as a natural consequence of the mentoring relationship.
We therefore concluded that mentoring creates opportunities of mutual learning, at any stage of professional life. It is also a very sustainable way of learning, as it requires minimum resources: only a dyadic relationship of two motivated individuals.

Keywords:

Sustainable education, Mentoring, Lifelong learning.