ABSTRACT
We begin at the turn of the twentieth century in North America with an account of the modern origins of mentoring programmes. This leads into a description of the development of student mentoring internationally. Mentoring programmes have developed widely across the Englishspeaking world and the chapter provides a brief overview of mentoring in the United States, England, Australia and Canada. However, there are notable examples of student mentoring in Israel and in Europe. The next section examines the development of government policy towards mentoring for young people, using the experience of England in the past ten years as an example. It includes an account of the role of the National Mentoring Network and an extended case study on the role of learning mentors. The chapter ends with some broad conclusions on the role of government and the international spread of mentoring programmes for young people.
