Browsing by Subject "ubuntu"

Rwanda’s national development plans recognize the need to improve the quality of teacher education. Values have an important role in the new national curriculum. The understanding of the explicit role of values in education and the interest towards values education has increased internationally in the current century. The research on ubuntu philosophy has proliferated in recent decades, and it has been suggested as a potential notion that can restructure the philosophical underpinnings of education, especially in sub-Saharan African contexts. This study investigated the role of values and ubuntu in Rwandan teacher education. The aim of the study is to evaluate how teacher educators attach their values and ubuntu philosophy to their descriptions of teaching practices. This qualitative study was based on narrative inquiry. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted in Rwanda with the teacher educators of the University of Rwanda-College of Education. Snowball sampling was utilized to recruit the interviewees. The interview data was analyzed using Riessman’s (2008) thematic narrative analysis approach. The narratives indicated that the teacher educators acknowledge the importance of values in teaching profession, and ubuntu is a relevant teaching philosophy to them, although there are no clear frameworks for its application in Rwanda. The narratives reflected the teacher educators’ personal, interpersonal and professional values. Their perspectives on ubuntu corresponded with the conceptualizations constructed in the literature. Five categories of value-informed teaching practices were established based on the narratives. These categories described the contexts in which the teacher educators aim to actualize their values. Four categories of ubuntu-informed teaching practices were identified. These reflected the different approaches that the teacher educators utilize in teaching the values and attitudes of ubuntu to the students.