Partnership between Teacher Education Institutes and Secondary Schools in Ethiopia: Status, Challenges, and Prospect

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the status, challenges, and prospects of partnership between teacher education institutes (TEIs) and secondary schools in Ethiopia. To this end, 141 secondary school teachers from 15 secondary schools, 70 instructor, and 162 student teachers from three universities were taken as a sample using purposive and random sampling techniques. Data were collected from participants (instructors, student teachers, secondary school teachers, school principals, deans, and practicum coordinators) using questionnaires (open and close-ended), interview, and documents analysis. Then the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a qualitative thematic analysis. The data analyzed suggests that the partnership between teacher education institutes and secondary schools is weak and TEIs, secondary schools, student teachers, TEI instructors and secondary school teachers’ contribution and supports to each other are not found to be satisfactory. In addition, the evidences suggest that there exists an opportunity for collaborative research, providing professional development trainings, and involving school teachers in mentoring and assessing students teachers in better ways. However, Organization of practicum, student teachers’ discipline, instructors’ assessing student teachers, distance of secondary schools from the TEIs and secondary school teachers’ involvement in mentoring are identified as challenges.