Acquiring pedagogic authority while learning to teach

The quality of an education system and the quality of its teachers are tightly connected for policy makers and public discourse. To this end, the process of learning to teach underpins the possibilities within an education system. In this paper we reflect on what the process of learning to teach might mean for teachers in an education system. We ask how and to what extent mechanisms of teacher education reproduce or disrupt the nature of the South African education system. In particular, we tease out the relationship between teaching practice, a central mechanism within the process of teacher education, and the nature of the South Africa education system. The paper draws on data that examine the structure and nature of student teachers’ experiences of teaching practice in the Western Cape of South Africa. The data demonstrate that student teachers acquire pedagogic authority during their teaching practice at schools. This acquisition is bolstered by a policy framework which frames teaching practice as a central mechanism in the process of learning to teach as well as the manner in which initial teacher education programmes implement the teacher education qualification policy framework. Teaching practice experiences are therefore a mechanism for legitimating their position in the classroom and within the education system.