Chapter 4: Organization-Wide Digital Mentorship: A Comparative Discourse of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) Effects on Education Industry Within the Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe

The global transition into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has seemingly projected unprecedented impacts on the education industry across nations of the earth. The technological innovation of this era is pervading all levels of the school systems and cascading into phenomenal outcomes in teaching and mentoring relationships. In alignment with the foregoing, the evolving trend in digital mentoring is equally beaming significant impacts on the science and art of teaching and mentoring at organizational levels. Comparatively, the effects of 4IR on education industry concerning the organization-wide digital mentorship among the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and western European (WE) countries have been relative to prevailing regional realities. Hence, this study examined organization-wide digital mentorship from a comparative discourse of the effects of 4IR on the education industry within SSA and WE nations. Comprehensive literature research was conducted to gather data. Several searches were conducted on various websites and databases. Concepts, opinions, observations, and reports were identified, documented, discussed, and inferences were drawn accordingly. Literature on the influence of mentoring at individual level, social groups and within corporate organizations where institutional mentorship programmes are in force were reviewed. Furthermore, impacts of organization-wide digital mentoring were explored, considering group dynamics and organizational benefits of digital mentoring programs. Comparative case studies of digital mentorship within the education industry in SSA and WE countries were critically examined to further spur intellectual discourse. In a bid to ameliorate the drawbacks of the prevailing regional realities, strategic recommendations were proposed to stakeholders across the SSA and WE regions.