Training Tomorrow's Teacher: The Kenyan Government's Efforts to Respond to Pre-Service Teacher Training Demands of Secondary School Teachers.

Abstract

Quality in education is today viewed as a critical factor central to achieving the Educationfor All (EFA) objectives. It is for this reason that the Government of Kenya (GOK) has initiated a number of structural reforms aimed at enhancing the same. Towards this end, teacher education has been identified as one of the predominant areas that need to be addressed if the quality imperative is to be achieved. This presentation analyses the Kenyan government's attempts to address the pre service secondary teacher training program as a response to the poor education quality in its education system. Primarily based on document analysis and semi structured interviews, this contribution not only looks at the objectives of the current training curriculum as stipulated in the selected texts, but goes a step further in contrasting the views held by the government to those held by final year teacher students on the teaching profession as well as expected training outcomes. The findings reveal important gaps that need to be addressed if secondary pre-service teacher training in Kenya is to achieve its stipulated objectives.