Mentoring student teachers and novice teachers constitutes a critical factor in teacher education programmes (Schwille, 2008). Research into the mentoring process of pre-service teachers maintains that mentoring is one of the primary factors that determines the success of the beginning teachers at the initial stages of their teaching experience (He, 2009).   However, there is no consensus about the role definition of mentoring (Young, et al., 2005) and the fact that no generalizations can be made might lead practitioners to the conclusion that ‘anything goes’ (Cain, 2009) and any ‘good teacher’ could be a mentor (Jones, 2009).  Actually, it is reported that cooperating teachers are oftentimes poorly prepared for their work with student teachers (Goodfellow, 2000). Clarke et al. argue that the situation arises from the faulty assumption that pre-service teacher education is the sole responsibility of universities or colleges of education. Thus cooperating teachers have been passive participants in their own professional development (Clarke et al., 2012).

Although research has shown that formal preparation can improve mentors’ performance (Iancu-Haddad & Oplatka, 2009) suggesting that they may have greater success in impacting professional growth and teacher enthusiasm (Giebelhaus & Bowman, 2002), not much attention is placed on mentoring models.  As a result, the mentoring that novice teachers receive is often considered intuitive (He, 2009). Relatively, little emphasis has been placed on the mentors themselves, particularly in relation to their own professional development and the construction of their identities.  The focus is usually on the student teachers’ personal growth by learning from the mentor (Wenger, 1998 as cited in Kwan & Lopez-Real, 2005). 

The study raises critical questions concerning the role of the mentor, and more specifically, the mentors’ professional identity. Thus, the study addresses the following questions:  How do mentors perceive the role of mentoring? Who in their opinion is qualified for the role? What are their professional needs and how useful is mentoring education?

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