Abstract:
The Kenya Vision 2030 recognizes education and training within the social pillar
alongside the economic and political pillars that are cornerstones expected to
transform Kenya into a newly industrializing middle income country providing a high
quality life to all its citizens. Teachers are an important component of education
whose services are indispensable in the realization of educational goals the world over. Due to their central role in the enterprise of education, teachers at all levels require
effective and sufficient education to be able to adequately carry out their roles and
responsibilities. There are variations of teacher education programmes for the
different levels of education from early childhood to tertiary education. Teacher
education is a whole range of activities that constitute preparation for and
improvement of the teaching profession. This encompasses pre-service and inservice
teacher education programmes. These forms of teacher education programmes involve
the study of professional disciplines, teaching subjects and general knowledge
subjects. With the advent of free primary education (2003) and free secondary
education (2008), the need and demand for more teachers has resulted in
re-engineering and expansion of teacher education programmes for all levels of
education with the realization that teachers are crucial personnel whose contribution
activates the optimal functioning of the social, economic and political facets of a
country. This confirms the fact that teacher education is an important driver for
sustainable development since literally every knowledgeable and skilled individual in
micro and macro productive activity has been shaped in some ways by the
contribution of a teacher. It is thus important that teacher education programmes are
crafted in a manner to energize their impact on the learners and humanity in general. This paper surveys the various teacher education programmes at all levels of
education in Kenya in an effort to appraise and propose instrumental adjustments to
sharpen their impact on sustainable development.
