A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Division of Education Leadership and Policy Studies School of Education University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg January 2016 / This study explores the role of the Pedagogic University of Mozambique in preparing teachers for the national education system in Mozambique. Its main aim is to develop a retrospective and interpretive analysis of a university-based teacher education system at the university, along with its legacy and institutional changes. Exploring a case study of the Pedagogic University of Mozambique, it examines how the project of teacher education has developed at the university, in terms of the outcomes of its stated vision and mission as well as the content, form, assumptions and expectations inherent in the kind of learning and teaching that it delivers. In providing an overview of the activities of the University, it is necessary to take into consideration the legacy and changes that have occurred in the conception, organisation and delivery of the university’s teaching programmes. The study also presents and analyses the experiences and perceptions of the academic staff, fourth-year students, school principals, and officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture. It is a qualitative study, which is developed through a literature review, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews. The study employs the concept of a “continuum of teacher learning” and applies it to a discussion of professional education supported by Lortie (1975); Britzman (1991); Villegas- Reimers; (2003); Schwille and Dembélé (2007); Morrow (2007); Conway, Murphy, Rath and Hall (2009). It argues that the Pedagogic University has been developing an ideal model which takes into account the socioeconomic conditions prevailing in Mozambique. This involves changing from a consecutive model to a concurrent programme model, in which a professional component is provided at the same time as a general component. The programmes are delivered in an integrated way, so that subject content and pedagogic content are delivered simultaneously from the first year until the end of the course. Another characteristic of this ideal model is that the same programmes are delivered to students who are already teachers and students without any teaching experience. Many factors limit the major mission of the institution, and these are described in detail. They include the absence of a national teacher education development framework, budget constraints and a lack of financial resources at institutional level. The study argues that institutional responses to these constraints ought to be understood within the context of universities worldwide. They have resulted in the University gradually becoming a “pedagogic” institution in name only: it has moved from being completely devoted to the field of education to becoming a university that delivers a variety of programmes, including those that are perceived to be most marketable. The study also covers the emergence of careerism among students, as well as the installation of some sort of distraction among the academic staff competing for extra hours in the new programmes in order to increase their sources of income. One of the major conclusions reached by this study is that the changes have become inevitable, mostly because of the dominance of a neoliberal economic agenda in one of the very poorest countries in the world. Within a financially fraught context, such changes are inevitable. Students are unable to pay the rising cost of fees for teacher education programmes, aside from the fact that teaching is not a popular profession and studying education is not usually the students’ first choice. Key words: teacher education development; continuum of teacher learning; secondary school teachers; concurrent and consecutive models; curricular transformations; Mozambique.