New Study Maps How 10 Countries Structure Student Mentoring

Risdiyanto, R., Hernawan, A. H., Johan, R. C., & Fadlilah, A. F. (2026). A comparative analysis of the student mentoring system in secondary education. Inovasi Kurikulum, 23(2), 361–376. https://doi.org/10.64014/jik.v23i2.269

Introduction

Secondary school students worldwide navigate academic responsibilities and the psychosocial toll of adolescence. Digital overload and AI-integration in learning environments complicate these issues, requiring greater self-discipline and emotional resilience. Education systems have responded by institutionalizing structured mentoring frameworks, from Singapore’s Form Teacher Guidance Period to Finland’s ryhmänohjaaja system. Yet, no comprehensive cross-national comparison of these models had previously been attempted. Risdiyanto and colleagues (2026) address that gap, comparing Indonesia’s Homeroom teacher policy global mentoring frameworks.

Methods

The authors employed a Systematic Literature Review following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, combined with comparative structural analysis. Searches across Scopus, ERIC, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar, supplemented by hand-searching of national education portals and OECD/UNESCO documents, yielded 2,121 records. After screening, 25 documents met inclusion criteria: 23 empirical studies and two policy documents representing ten countries—Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. Data extraction followed a structured coding protocol across eight dimensions, including role definitions, caseload parameters, training requirements, and policy integration.

Results

Six themes emerged: policy architecture, role definition, caseload and time allocation, professional training, relationship quality, and workload sustainability. Relationship quality consistently outranked structural variables as the most powerful predictor of mentoring effectiveness. Systems maintaining student-to-mentor ratios below 25:1 with protected mentoring time produced measurably stronger outcomes, including 18–22% higher student engagement rates and 30% higher belonging metrics (Gambone, 2024; Schenk et al., 2020).

Discussion

Singapore, Finland, and Japan illustrate what integrated academic-pastoral models can achieve when backed by clear policy, realistic caseloads, and mandatory training. Systems relying on experiential learning alone, as in China, Japan, the UK, and the U.S., produce uneven implementation quality. The U.S. and Netherlands demonstrate that locally designed advisory models generate relational strength but sacrifice consistency.

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