Teacher education and institutional change in South Africa

Abstract

In 1994, the South African teacher education landscape was fragmented across a wide variety of institutional sites. Ten years later, initial teacher education was taking place in a very different environment, shaped by a decade of far-reaching legislative, policy and structural changes. While change was necessary and inevitable after the democratic transition of 1994, successive waves of internal restructuring, college incorporation and higher education mergers placed heavy demands on both academics and management.

Teacher Education and Institutional Change in South Africa investigates the specific experiences of institutional change in eleven diverse university contexts and explores the complex, multiple impacts of these experiences on the conditions for initial teacher education. Ultimately, the study highlights the challenges that lie ahead if the system is to produce the right number and right kind of teachers for South Africa.

This monograph is part of the Teacher Education in South Africa series. The series documents a wide-ranging set of research projects on teacher education conducted by the Education, Science and Skills Development research programme within the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), as part of a consortium of research partners. A comprehensive investigation of the dynamics shaping the professional development of educators, the series provides important reading for educationists, academics and policy-makers.