The Role of the Peer Mentorship Programme in Enabling Students to Be Resilient During and Post the Covid-19 Pandemic

First-Year students often struggle to transition from high school to higher education institutions (HEI), mainly due to the disadvantaged background from which they originate. However, the Covid-19 Pandemic was an additional challenge for first-year students in 2020 to 2022, as students had to transition to the new environment and cope with the pandemic simultaneously. HEIs had different strategies to ensure that students were supported, and one of the interventions was a peer mentorship programme. Against this background, this study explored the role and impact of this peer mentorship programme on students, both mentors and mentees, during and post the Covid-19 Pandemic. The study investigated whether the programme empowered students to be resilient during the 2020 to 2022 academic years. The study surveyed 110 students from a faculty in an HEI in South Africa. Data was collected using a questionnaire to explore the resilience of the HEI student and the influence of the peer mentorship programme on student resilience. The questionnaire was adapted from the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) instrument. The study found that students who participated in the peer mentorship programme had an above-average BRS score and that the peer mentorship programme had a significant influence on the HEI students’ resilience. Therefore, the study recommends that HEIs establish peer mentorship programmes to support students in developing resilience to assist them in better dealing with the challenges they confront as first-year students.