In most graduate schools, the graduate student supervision relationship has been left to a traditional apprenticeship model, where the established ‘master’ inducts the new apprentice into the ‘mysteries’ of the craft. The academic apprentice has been left to learn by two methods: observing how the master does research, and, more broadly, being an academic; and, learning from his own beginner’s experience of doing sustained academic research, where the master is expected to give feedback to the apprentice’s ideas as these are delivered in both oral and written form. This is a highly personalised relationship. The transmission of the craft occurs through the apprentice producing work which gives witness to how he has been inducted into the craft by the master. The quality of this witness depends on what is an ineffable and fundamentally religious conception of the apprentice’s insight into how the supervisor exemplifies the academic craft of scholarship and research. It is the genius of the apprentice which is responsible for how he takes up into his own creative powers the exemplary virtues and skills of the master. This paper seeks to explore the intricacies of the supervisor – supervisee relationship. Based on a survey of literature, key areas that influence the success of this relationship are discussed. The way-forward for fruitful partnership is also provided.

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