SUSTAINABILITY IN INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS: A NEW ZEALAND WITH CHINA TEACHER EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP

International partnerships have become one of the key strategies to today’s in-service teacher education (ISTE) or professional development (PD). How to carry out international ISTE partnerships cross-culturally deserves greater attention as education systems in developing countries in East Asia have undergone significant reforms and demanded capacity building through working with Western teacher education providers. Sustainability emerges as a key issue as teacher education institutions (TEIs) carry out ISTE cross-culturally. Drawing upon a larger scale study, this paper used a New Zealand with China (NZ-China) partnership as an example to examine what sustainability means in international ISTE partnerships. This NZ-China partnership involved a New Zealand TEI to offer a Master of Education degree to in-service teachers from a province in China. This study particularly explored the teacher educators’ and administrative staff’s experiences of planning, implementing and completing the four-year NZ-China partnership. Data was collected by employing qualitative research methods as they were appropriate to gain insight into the real life experiences of the participants (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). In-depth face to face interviews were conducted to explore the participants’ perceptions of and experiences with the partnership. Grounded theory methodology (Glaser & Strauss, 1999) was employed to analyse the interview data. Through three coding procedures, including open, axial and selective coding, theoretical saturation was achieved. Based on the experiences of the participants, sustainability emerged as one of the key themes. The findings move beyond the current literature on sustainability in higher education which emphasises the senior management of the higher education institution. The findings gave accounts of how teacher educators, middle management and a wide range of key stakeholders were involved in promoting the sustainability of the NZ-China partnership. Specifically, this study identified some key factors and discussed some strategies for enhancing sustainability in international ISTE partnerships.

References:
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 1-32). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1999). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.