Abstract
This study investigated the motivations and challenges of mentoring within the initial teacher education practicum programme in two selected cases of initial teacher education institutions and their partnering schools in Kazakhstan. This qualitative-multiple cases study used a theoretical framing of relational motives proposed by Janssen et al. (2014) as a lens, was conducted through twenty-three semi-structured one-on-one interviews, one paired interview, four focus groups from mentors, students, practicum advisors and senior faculty along with the document analysis. The findings indicate that mentors predominantly pursue intrinsic motivations when they take up the mentoring role. The role was also accompanied by several challenges, represented in the lack of extrinsic incentives (low salary and prestige and high level of workload) along with the unsatisfactory quality of the student teachers coming to the practicum.