Research Article Open Access

Using Phenomenological Hermeneutics: Understanding Educator’s Perceptions and Attitudes towards Pursuing Teacher Education in Namibia

Abstract

Teachers are pivotal figures in influencing the shape, development, and transmission of culture of teaching. The nation is re-examining its views on Teacher education with great emphasis on teaching and learning and the transformation of schools. Previous educational reforms have already intensified growing public interests in the role of teachers, the practice of teaching, the nature and future of teacher education in Namibia. The title is appropriate for this article since it conceptualizes on systems that build on individual, team and organizational capacities to transform schools. This hermeneutic phenomenology research project tends to demonstrate the importance of recognizing these newly aroused educators’ perceptions and attitudes as they hold great possibility for change. Furthermore, this qualitative study reveals that since teachers are uniquely qualified to understand, describe, criticize and modify their own perspective, their voices are essential to the task at hand and must be recognized at all costs, as far as transforming the school into a learning organization is concerned. This article concludes that no true education can take place without comprehending the role and personhood of educators, without understanding institutional and cultural prospects and constraints of educators, without recognizing their individual performance, without reflecting on and reviewing the entire reward strategy and philosophy and without encouraging educators to pursue with teacher education. All in all, the author presents an extensive and a serious contemporary discussion of findings on educators’ perceptions and attitudes towards teacher education, as far as changing the school into a viable site of learning is concerned.

Nelson Antonio*

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