UKZN Academic Co-Edits Book on Teacher Education in Mauritius

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UKZN School of Education academic Professor Michael Anthony Samuel has co-edited the book Continuity, Complexity and Change: Teacher Education in Mauritius with Dr Hyleen Mariaye of the Mauritius Institute of Education (MIE).

The book emanates from a 2011 Memorandum of Understanding between MIE and the School.

Said Samuel: ‘Whilst the research project originally attempted to construct an institutional biography of the only teacher education institution in Mauritius, over time it explored methodological and theoretical challenges and the potential of narrative and life history research. The intersection between the personal, the institutional and the political forces characterises the textured biographies of partnerships with national and international partners within the state, the wider community and the academic research community.

‘The book extends debates around researching Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the kinds of comparative research implications it might have for reframing our conceptions of international Higher Education collaborations,’ said Samuel.

The book draws on the narratives of participants involved as pioneers, managers and foot soldiers of the 40-year history of the MIE, showing the processes of navigating their professional journeys. The book provides insights into how academics as institutional researchers generate from their experience critical questions about themselves in the face of the multiple challenges which have come to characterise the world of Higher Education.

At the heart of this work sits a desire for a re-articulation of the nature of what it means to teach teachers, for self-understanding, and for the reclaiming of agency institutionally, individually and internationally.

According to Samuel, as states and Higher Education Institutions increasingly capitulate to the agenda of corporate managerialism, this book paints a complex canvas of voices emerging from the past, the present, and the future, offering possibilities for collective and creative reconstruction in Higher Education.

‘We have coined the term activating “a third generation studies of SIDS” to expand beyond previously deficient or parochial understandings of comparative SIDS research. The book speaks beyond the island context to an international audience interested in Higher Education and teacher education studies. This is why we chose an international publisher: the small opens possibilities for the big,’ explained Samuel.

The book is available online from Amazon.

Melissa Mungroo