Raising the Quality of Teacher Education Programmes in Palestine

Despite numerous initiatives to upgrade the quality of the teaching profession in Palestine in recent years, there have been none that have led to a complete holistic reform of BA Primary Education degree programmes to reflect international practice. This project addresses this need by adopting a systemic, holistic approach to quality reform of all elements of BA Primary Education degree programmes in participating universities in the Gaza Strip and West Bank of Palestine. This involves the total reconceptualization of the programmes to include the adoption of an extended Practicum Field Experience in line with international practice and the renewal of courses so that they are linked explicitly to Practicum and support student teachers to develop a range of 21st century pedagogical skills; leading to a new generation of teachers who are able to transform teaching and learning in Palestinian classrooms. The programmes include clearly defined pathways that focus on developing capacity in identified needs within Palestinian education; namely, Technology Enhanced Teaching Learning and Assessment (TELTA) and Diversity, Inclusion and SEN (DISEN). Programme development is supported by a capacity building programme in higher education pedagogy that focuses upon supporting academic staff to adopt modern, student-centred, interactive teaching approaches and strategies and use technology effectively to support and enhance learning, teaching and assessment. A parallel programme in research capacity building empowers academic staff to research their practices and draw upon these to inform on-going improvement of the programmes. These initiatives are underpinned by the establishment of well-equipped technology enhanced learning environments consisting of tailor-made digital learning platforms based on Google Apps for Education (GAFE), and a Smart Learning Room in each university that supports the movement from traditional to transformational ways of learning and teaching.