Teacher Education for Independent Namibia: From the liberation struggle to a national agenda

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Abstract
This article starts with some reflections about the context for educational reform in Namibia after independence in 1990. It elaborates on the development of a teacher education programme, the Integrated Teacher Training Programme (ITTP), as part of the liberation struggle during the pre-independence period. It looks into the national teacher education programme after independence, the Basic Education Teacher Diploma (BETD), as a merger of ideas about teacher education in the context of a new philosophy of education in sharp contrast to the mainstream and prevailing educational traditions in Namibia. It also addresses the relation between the pre-independence efforts in exile and the national agenda for teacher education reform and the questions of consistency and whether/how the former have affected the present situation. It is the on-going struggle against the conservative forces in Namibia which will show how far teacher education can contribute to social change in a society stigmatized by a previous racist policy. There is evidence that the experiences from exile had an impact on the direction of teacher education in Namibia after independence. There is also evidence of the transformation of progressive educational notions into practices more suited to the conservative agenda.

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