Towards a Winning Approach in Developing Meaningful Pre-service Teaching Practice

Abstract

This article seeks to ignite a debate on the central place of teaching practice in the education and development of teachers. It further argues that, it is only when all aspects of teacher education are appropriately positioned that a country can produce well qualified teachers. Teaching practice provides opportunities to put to test what is expected in the real world of teaching. Qualitative research was conducted among the teaching practice students of the University of South Africa (UNISA) who were placed for teaching practice. The research comprised of one to one interviews and one focus group. With the improvement plan UNISA was granted full accreditation of the PGCE teaching programme and the BEd programme still required refinement. Even the fully accredited programme are not completely free of shortcomings hence the need for more consolidated efforts to improve teaching practice. One of the major findings was that Teaching Practice students do not get enough support and lack examples on which to model their practice. Based on the findings recommendations were made to provide more contact and best practices for students to model their practices