Collaborative professional practice for strengthening teacher educator identities in Eritrea

Strengthening the identities of teacher educators is critical to quality teacher education and implementing change in the education sector. This study examines the professional identities of Eritrean teacher educators and how these identities can be strengthened through collaborative professional practice in a challenging context currently under reform. The focus is on the professional capacity building activities at the College of Education in Eritrea, which were implemented in collaboration with Finnish education partners. The paper reports on findings from an action-research informed study of a semester-long series of professional development seminars and an interview study with individual teacher educators. The qualitative content analyses of seminar participants' drawings, evaluations and interview data focus on: 1) identifying critical issues that support the formation of teacher educator identities, and 2) understanding how collaborative practice at the institutional level can support the strengthening of professional identities. The findings point to potential ways of creating critical colleagueship and more purposeful, contextually relevant approaches for professional development in teacher education. The need for strengthening the identities of teacher educators' through bottom-up processes and in collaboration with international partners is highlighted.