1.1 Rationale

Teaching practice forms an integral part of any teacher education programme, though organizational structures and implementation approaches might vary from one institution to the other. The difference in the delivery of Teaching Practice (TP) can be better understood when issues such as duration, procedures followed in implementing a TP programme and perceptions of those with a stake in teaching practice are analysed. The studies mentioned earlier can be categorized into small and large-scale studies. The small-scale studies were those that were undertaken by Ntho (1998) and Moorosi (1998). These studies have one major limitation in that they tend to focus on a specific element of the teaching practice supervision model. On the contrary, the large-scale studies covered a number of issues and because they were studies of a consultancy nature, they made recommendations that were supposed to help the College review and therefore improve the TP programme. Both of the recent consultancy studies (Sebatane et al, 1987; Hopkin, 1996) focused specifically on Teaching Practice and made a number of recommendations, some of which have been partially implemented. This particular sub-study of MUSTER draws on the work done in the teaching practice evaluation studies and aims at finding answers to some of the issues regarding the running of the TP programme at NTTC. Specifically, the study aimed to address the following questions: