Vol. 5, Issue 10, Part C (2019)

Abstract
Peer mentoring has been practiced generally to guide or assist mentees and make learning manageable. A mentor could be somebody that could inspire, motivate or encourage mentees. In the Marine Engineering Department of the University of Cebu-Maritime Education and Training Center (UC-METC), peer mentoring has been implemented to ensure that competencies required under Standards of Training, Certification and Watch keeping for Seafarers ’78 (STCW ‘78) as amended are acquired by the students. These competencies under STCW ’78 are required by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Peer mentors are volunteer students. They are trained on how to conduct the exercises in the Kongsberg engine room simulator and several relevant equipment in the machine shop including the Ikegai auxiliary engine before they were allowed to mentor other students. They must have a half day vacant time from Monday to Saturday in order to qualify because a regular mentoring schedule is a half-day session open from Monday to Saturday. All qualified volunteer mentors are required to log 40 hours of training in the full-mission engine room simulator and other relevant facilities before they are allowed to mentor. Students enrolled in the review class are required to go through all the scenarios or activities in the “simulators” with the guidance or help of the mentors. In line with the continual improvement requirement of the quality management system of UC-METC, it is the purpose of this study to evaluate the program and to recommend for improvement. The study used a questionnaire adopted from the established and documented Student Mentor Observation Sheet (Document code: SFM-DNS-028-00) and was given to selected engine cadets. The output of the study is the recommendation for improvement of the performance of the mentors, including the scheduling of mentoring and the sustainability of the program.