CRITICAL EVALUATION OF TEACHER EDUCATION QUALITY AND THE
IMPLICATIONS ON TEACHER QUALITY IN ZIMBABWE

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF TEACHER EDUCATION QUALITY AND THE
IMPLICATIONS ON TEACHER QUALITY IN ZIMBABWE

CUTHBERT MAJONI

The study sought to evaluate teacher education quality and its implication on teacher quality
in Zimbabwe. The researcher was spurred into investigating this area because of the
misgivings of various stakeholders on the quality of today’s teacher in Zimbabwe. These
teachers are said to be lacking the requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes required to
effectively execute their duties. Teacher colleges are autonomous institutions and design their
own curriculum, implement and assess their own students. Current teachers in Zimbabwe are
blamed for low quality in the education system. This study was a qualitative study and the
paradigm was interpretive. The multiple case study design was used to carry out this study.
The participants in this study included student teachers, lecturers and graduates from the
teachers colleges and mentors from schools. To select the sample the purposive sampling
technique was used. To collect data interviews, focus group discussions, document analysis
and open-ended questionnaires were used. Data were analysed using the grounded theory.
The major findings of this research were that there were variations in quality in teacher
education institutions. The study found out that the ZINTEC model was used as a model for
training primary school teachers in Zimbabwe. The teacher education curriculum was found
to be overloaded and was impacting negatively on quality and quantity of delivery. The
study found subjective assessment of teaching practice and poor mentoring as factors
negatively impacting on the quality of teacher training. Prevalence of negative lecturer-
student relationships was compromising the credibility of the teacher training programme and
its assessment processes. The study find out that graduates were not well prepared to teach
effectively in the primary school because they lack adequate content knowledge and
pedagogical content knowledge. The study recommends the review of the whole teacher
training system. There is need to standardise the teacher education curriculum and relook at
the primary school curriculum to improve the quality of training. The teacher education
conceptual framework should be re-defined and model of teacher training reviewed in the
light of the findings of this study. Teacher education should be guided by a well-defined
conceptual framework base of constructivist theory of learning. This study recommends the
adoption of values, attitudes, skills and knowledge (VASK) model to improve quality of
teacher preparation

Zimbabwe Open University

2014