| The extensive educational reforms currently being implemented in Jamaica, in addition to my personal curiosity as a teacher educator, provide the rationale for this research. A better awareness and understanding of who enrols to learn to teach may be critical to the viability and success of the current reforms taking place in the Jamaican education system, and teacher education in particular.;This study explores why Jamaican student teachers, who were not aspiring to learn to be teachers or teach, entered and completed a three-year teacher education programme. The study was guided by two essential research questions: (i) What accounts for Jamaican students, who indicate that teacher education and teaching are not their educational or occupational aspirations, entering and completing teacher education? (ii) What do these Jamaican students experience within the teacher education program that contributes to their belief that such a program is of benefit to their educational and occupational aspirations?;Postcolonial theory (Ashcroft, Griffith and Tiffen, 1989) and theory of occupational choice (Ginzberg, 1963, 1972) serve as analytical frameworks to assist in better understanding the Jamaican student teacher experience. Qualitative methodology provided the means to including the essential "voices" of eight Jamaican student teachers; and, grounded theory the means to collecting and analysing what they had to say about entering and completing teacher education.;The findings raise the notion of "youthfulness", and how this may influence aspirations and decisions in an economic and academic environment of limited options and opportunities. They suggest that teacher education may serve as a "stepping-stone" to more desirable educational or occupational goals. The findings also reveal what these student teachers believed were significant aspects of the teacher education experience, and how this experience may contribute to their future educational or occupational plans and aspirations.;Finally, this study supports the movement to reform teacher education in Jamaica; however, not at the expense of reducing the opportunities for higher education within the wider Jamaican populace. Suggestions are presented regarding possible reforms to secondary and post-secondary education in general; therefore, reforms which may support or enhance existing teacher education programmes. |
