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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/20695 |
| Date | 25 July 2016 |
| Creators | De Bastos, Juliano Neto |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (264 leaves), application/pdf, application/pdf |
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