Integration of Peace Education in B.ED (Hons) Curriculum: A Case Study on Teacher Education Institutions in Karachi

Abstract

Peace education is a way to acquire knowledge, insight, and underpinnings, develop learning skills, and shape personalities and dispositions to live in harmony with all of the universe's creations (Omirin & Funke, 2015). This study intends to analyze the influence of peace education in the B.Ed. (Hons) curriculum on prospective teachers' knowledge, skills, and dispositions toward peace education. The empirical study adopted a descriptive research approach for this purpose. Qualitative data was collected through content analysis of three core subjects from B.Ed. (Hons.) curricula, which already integrated peace-related content to explore peace-related topics and the impact of peace content on teachers' educators and the prospective teachers' knowledge, skills, and disposition. Teachers' educators and prospective teachers were interviewed to examine their development of understanding, skills, and dispositions regarding peace education. The battery was modified according to the research context to analyze quantitative data related to the peace knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teachers' educators and prospective teachers. A convenient sampling strategy was used to collect study data from 125 respondents. Fifty questions were asked on a five-point Likert scale to prompt teachers' perspectives on the impact of peace education from the B.Ed. (Hons.) curriculum on prospective teachers and teachers' educators regarding knowledge, skills, and dispositions. SPSS was used to evaluate the data facts. Qualitative and quantitative results show that three subjects of B.Ed. (Hons) are explicitly integrated with peace education. The peace knowledge of the teachers' educators and prospective teachers is more favorable than their skills and disposition. However, skills and attitudes must be emphasized to improve peace education practices. Prospective teachers and teachers' educators are on the same level of peace-knowledge, skills, and dispositions, whereas teachers' educators must be at a higher level. It is concluded that integrating peace education into teachers' curricula empowers and makes teachers accountable for encouraging students' personal and social advancements. Therefore, it is believed that skill and dispositions of peace influence society's ethical and moral practices, making them more responsive and consistent with universal values. Peace education is critical to forming moral knowledge, attitudes, and values; it emboldens present and prospective teachers to reshape their and their students' personalities and trains them for peace-building, peacekeeping, and peacemaking to social reform. It is suggested that peace education be integrated with each semester of teachers' curricula, so prospective teachers' consistently learn training and practice peace education to develop their moral personalities. Recruiting untrained teachers is the most influential factor that affects students' dispositions; therefore, trained teachers should be recruited as consistent individuals. Social and professional development must be pursued to transform their knowledge, skills, and dispositions regarding peace, bringing social change.