“… by seeking help I became equipped, skilled and enlightened”: Ugandan tutors’ stories, identities and spaces for professional development in teacher colleges.

EasyChair Preprint 1515

Abstract

For all the attention given to education in Sub-Saharan Africa, inadequate focus has been on the purposes and processes of teacher education. Tutors working at colleges of education are a vital part of the education landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa. They are responsible for teaching, supporting and inspiring the hundreds of thousands of teachers who start working in schools each year.

This paper reports on a study of how 39 teacher educators from 8 colleges in Uganda see their role and responsibilities within their college. The context for the study is one in which external initiatives and wider national frameworks for inclusive learning are requiring practical, technological and conceptual shifts in teacher preparation. Not enough is known about how this could happen in colleges of education. Much of the limited literature about teacher educators is framed within a deficit narrative that depicts a conservative cohort of professionals, unprepared for their role, and resistant to change.

The research adopted a storytelling methodology. Tutors attended workshops where a range of activities supported them to develop a (true) story that they felt would give previously untold insight into their work. From the every-day, to the once-in-a-lifetime, the focus of the story was up to the tutor. This built a richly detailed compilation of tutors’ professional values, relationships, needs and practices. The stories were analysed through a professional identity lens.

This paper highlights how tutors are both constrained and empowered in aspects of the role and provides insights that could inform more effective college-based professional development for inclusive and equitable teaching and learning.

Keyphrases: Uganda, inclusion, professional identity, teacher education

@booklet{EasyChair:1515,
  author    = {Alison Buckler and Kris Stutchbury and George Kasule and Jane Cullen and Doris Kaije},
  title     = {“… by seeking help I became equipped, skilled and enlightened”: Ugandan tutors’ stories, identities and spaces for professional development in teacher colleges.},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 1515},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2019}}