No abstract

Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes are expected to prepare teachers who have the capacity to develop conceptually strong, responsive and inclusive teaching practices. The extent to which ITE programmes have been successful in this endeavour has been questioned both internationally (e.g. Lancaster & Auhl, 2013) and within the South African context (Council on Higher Education [CHE], 2010). In retrospect, it is not surprising that the review of initial teacher education (ITE) programmes conducted by the CHE between 2005 and 2007 found that the sector was experiencing tension between "the theoretical and conceptual rigour expected of a professional degree and the vocation-specific training of teachers" for classroom readiness (CHE, 2010: 103). The institutional mergers between teacher training colleges, faculties of education and universities of technologies meant that teacher educators were encountering approaches to the preparation of teachers very different to the ones they had previously used (Gordon, 2008; Kruss, 2008). The first national policy governing the provision of teacher education, the Norms and Standards for Educators (Department of Education, 2000) posed additional challenges to the newly merged sector: it stipulated that ITE programmes should prepare prospective teachers for 7 different 'roles of the educator'. By the end of their ITE, qualifying teachers should have achieved 10 exit level outcomes, verified against a set of 89 assessment criteria. South African teacher educators thus found themselves grappling with how to organise coursework and practicum expectations around these (extensive) lists of discrete roles, outcomes and competences (e.g. Fraser, Killen & Nieman, 2005). The CHE review noted that tensions around academic depth and contextual relevance were particularly prominent in programmes where a conceptual framework was absent.