Abstract:

In the Gulf states, where higher education continues to undergo rapid development, international accreditation for academic programs is supported by educational authorities and is reflective of both the impact of globalization on the region (Badry & Willoughby, 2016) and the migration of quality assurance from the world of business into higher education (Altbach et al., 2010). Accreditation is equated with academic program quality and is achieved through a process of evaluation of the extent to which pre-set external standards have been met (Sato and Abbiss, 2021). However, concern has been expressed about the appropriacy of adopting western-originated standards for teacher education in the region. Critics have questioned the importation of an external model of accreditation that purportedly does not fit the traditional cultural and educational norms of the Gulf (Romanovski & Alkhabeet, 2020). As such, international accreditation has been portrayed as an instrument of neocolonialism imposing on the local educational context (Romanowski, 2020). Upon investigation into the indigenous approach to teacher education in the Gulf, however, evidence for an effective pre-existing local model is lacking, especially in the area of pedagogical practice. Until recently, theory and practice were disconnected in teacher education programs in the region, and there were few practice-based partnerships between universities and schools (Gallagher, 2019). Teachers in the Gulf were traditionally trained in content knowledge and educational theory alone, but practical pedagogical training was not a prerequisite for securing a teaching position (Gallagher, 2019). In fact, most teachers were hired directly from other countries in the Middle East with equally little interest in pedagogical preparation (Kippels & Ridge, 2019). Yet research shows the key influence of the teacher in determining student achievement (Barber & Mourshed, 2007), and, taken along with concerning regional results in international standardized tests of student achievement including PIRLS and PISA (NFER, nd), suggests that attention must be paid to the development of teachers’ pedagogical skills as a key component of effective teacher education. In this paper, a case study of a successful international accreditation endeavor by a college of education in the Emirates is presented to examine the positive impact of international standards on the effective preparation of future teachers in the Gulf.

Keywords:

Teacher Education, Accreditation, Globalization in Higher Education, Internationalization, Emirates.