The teachers we need for the education we want

Attaining SDG4 entails making conscious investment in teacher preparation because at the heart of “the education we want”, lies “the teachers we need”. Yet, the quest “to reverse teacher shortage” (UNESCO, 2023) has not sufficiently taken account of the various pieces of the teacher training puzzle. At the heart of initial teacher training lies teaching practice (TP), which Du Plessis, Marais, Van Schalkwyk & Weeks (2010) describe as “the most single powerful intervention in teachers’ professional preparation” (p.328). TP is an essential component of initial teacher education because it gives pre-service teachers hands-on experience of teaching (Bloomfield, 2010) and helps them to bridge the gap between educational theory and practice (Yunus, Hashim, Ishak, & Mahamod, 2010). In Cameroon, like elsewhere, pre-service teacher training for secondary school teachers is done in teacher training colleges (TTCs) dotted across the nation. While most of the training in TTCs focuses on ...