Faisal Islam
Commencement: Sept. 2005; Graduation November, 2010.
New teachers for new times’? a participatory evaluation of a school-university partnership to improve novice teacher education in rural South Africa in the age of AIDS
New teachers for new times?’: a participatory evaluation of a school-university partnership to improve novice teacher education in rural South Africa in the age of AIDS is an evaluation of the Rural Teacher Education Project (RTEP), a school-university partnership between University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and two rural higher secondary schools in the Vulindlela district in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This thesis attempts to explore what difference the school-university partnership can make in preparing new teachers in the troubling context of rural schools typified by HIV and AIDS, poverty, and the sense of isolation. Drawing on the participatory evaluation of the three phases of RTEP (2007-2009), my thesis investigates how student teachers as a Community of Practice’ self-reflect upon their: professional development, identity creation, pre-conceived orientation about teaching and learning in rural schools, and teacher preparation as per their perceived challenges in rural schools. In addition, I also looked at how a school-university partnership can influence the broader education discourse in rural schools, especially teacher education. This includes investigating what spaces the partnership has provided to the schools in rural areas to reflect on their practices, include their voices in the dominant teacher education discourses and improve their capacities/ understanding to address the challenges. Given that schools are usually considered as weak partners’ in school-university partnership discourses, the focus of the partnership in the thesis is to ascertain how the partnership is beneficial or problematic from the standpoint of the schools. The study also raises the question of how these spaces can be sustained over time and what school-university partnership with limited resources can contribute in an era of growing disparities, missed opportunities and worsening inequalities in post-apartheid South Africa.
Thesis Ph.D. New teachers for new times’? a participatory evaluation of a school-university partnership to improve novice teacher education in rural South Africa in the age of AIDS
Thesis M.A. Islam, politics and ideology in Indonesia : a study of the process of Muslim acceptance of the Pancasila Email