Learning beyond mentoring: the Singapore experience

In Singapore, mentoring was the key feature of a development strategy for aspiring principals for one and a half decades. Many of the former participant protégés are currently practising principals in schools. This paper reports an exploratory study that sought to identify and examine the main learning source of these principals beyond mentoring. It is suggested that there is active networking for learning relationships at work among fellow principals. The principals create, seize and promote opportunities to improve their on‐the‐job practice through learning from the unstructured learning relationships at work. The formal principalship preparation programme that they attended emerges as a breeding ground for the initiation of informal learning relationships at work. Beyond formal mentoring, the principals appear to lead their own learning in collaboration with their peers in education.