A Study On The Integrated Development Strategy Of African Teacher Education

The integrated development has been an important issue for Africa to achieve independence and promote development.The pace of integration in Africa has been accelerated under the globalized situation.The integrated development of Africa has gradually expanded from the political sphere to many fields such as economy,culture and education.In education,the African Union introduced two Integration Strategies for Higher Education and Vocational and Technical Education in 2007.With the proposed of education for all and sustainable development goals of education in 2030,the role of teachers is becoming more and more prominent.Meanwhile,problems in teacher education have also become one of the most urgent problems to be solved in African countries.If Africa wants to solve the teacher issue as a whole,all of its countries have to unite to promote the integrated development of teacher education.Therefore,studying the integrated development strategy of teacher education in Africa will have great value to solve the teacher problems in Africa,accelerate the integration development of teacher education in Africa,and promote China-Africa cooperation in teacher education.The dissertation takes the integrated development strategy of teacher education in Africa as the research object,and discusses the three major themes of this strategy.Literature research method,text analysis method and case method are the main research methods of the dissertation.Firstly,the dissertation explains the background of the integrated development strategy of teacher education in Africa from two aspects:the history and current situation of the development of teacher education in Africa and the realistic basis of the integration of teacher education in Africa.Secondly,the author summarizes the overall strategic goals and strategies of the integrated development of teacher education in Africa by combing the related strategic plans for the integrated development of teacher education in Africa,and then carries out further studies in the light of these strategic themes.The first theme of the Integrated Development Strategy of teacher Education in Africa is to expand the supply of qualified teachers,which was mainly expressed through Teacher Training Initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa and African Virtual University teacher Education Project.The measures taken to expand the supply of teachers are mainly "to attract more qualified teachers to teach," and "to expand teacher training opportunities through open,distance and e-learning."From the preliminary achievements obtained it can be seen that the shortage of qualified teachers was alleviated at the regional and national levels to a certain extent,the training opportunities for teachers is increasing,teachers' online learning resources has been developed and enriched and the status of teachers has been relatively improved.The second theme of the strategy is to improve the quality of teacher education,which was mainly expressed through Teacher Training Initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa,Harmonised curriculum structures and framework for the East African Ccommunity secondary teacher education.The main measures taken to improve the quality of teacher education are "development of teacher education policy","construction of teacher education curriculum" and "teacher development under open and distance education".The main achievements are as follows:A large number of national policy frameworks,strategies and plans related to teachers are formulated and implemented at the regional and national levels in Africa;Harmonised curriculum structures and framework for the East African Ccommuity secondary teacher education was promoted in the member countries of the EAC and boosted the integration of teacher education curriculum in Africa at the regional level;the development and application of open and distance education resources have promoted the development of teachers in member countries and improved the quality of teachers to a certain extent.The third theme of the strategy is capacity building of teacher education.It is mainly reflected in the Sub-Saharan Africa Teacher Training Program(2006?2015),SADC Regional Education and Training Implementation Plan(2007?2015)and Strategic Planning 2014-2019 issued by the Institute for the Development of Teacher Development in Africa.Measures taken to improve teachers 'educational capabilities are mainly "administrative capacity-building","building of teachers' teaching ability" and "capacity-building of teacher training institutions".The main achievements are as follows:To a certain extent,teachers'status and working conditions have been improved by improving administrative capacity building,such as,Guinea sought to improve the health of teachers by introducing teacher health insurance plans;Teacher faculty management and administrative structure have also been improved.For example,Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has taken the appropriate measures to train Teacher administration and management staff.Through the study on Integrated Development Strategy of teacher Education in Africa,the author finds thatIntegrated Development Strategy of teacher Education in Africa shows its own development characteristics under the complex internal environment and the increasingly competitive external environment of globalization:The main body of strategy formulation and implementation presents diversity,the strategic focus embodies the appropriateness and the strategy implementation has continuity.Some achievements have been made:teacher education has been initially alleviated and teacher education integration has been progressively developed;however,it also faced a series of challenges:shortage of funds for teacher education development,difficulties in coordination among stakeholders,low level of localization of policy planning and lack of assessment and regulatory system.Focusing on the theme,characteristics,achievements and challenges of the integrated development of teacher education in Africa,the cooperation between China and Africa in teacher education can be implemented by formulating practical China-Africa cooperation plans for teacher education,carrying out teacher training programs address the shortage of qualified teachers in Africa;assisting to African existing teacher education networks as well as building new China-Africa cooperative teacher education network to increase teacher professional development opportunities and improve teacher education quality;deepening cooperation with stakeholders such as UNESCO and the African Association for Educational Development Cooperation to promote the building of teacher education in Africa so as to enhance the effectiveness of China-Africa teacher education cooperation and achieve mutual benefit and win for all.