Core principles of an Islamic-based teacher education curriculum (IBTEC) : implications for teacher education programmes in the muslim world

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to derive core principles of an Islamic-based teacher education curriculum (IBTEC) from the primary and secondary sources of the Islamic education, and also from critiques of the current practices of teacher education institutions. The study pursued this by investigating in the context of today the essential needs of an effective Muslim teacher, and what should be the components and structure of an IBTEC. In order to establish the suitability of the IBTEC, the study investigated the strength and deficiencies of the dominant Western teacher education models as well as the merits and shortcomings of the dominant Islamic teacher education model. The study, which is conceived of as an Islamic response to Muslims’ call for a teacher education programme that they can truly call their own, revealed the frantic efforts they have made so far in that direction. It discovered that though they were committed to the idea of proffering an ideologically independent model, the end product of their efforts is a model that may be regarded as either a wholesale importation or an Islamic model that is heavily diluted with secular ingredients. Accordingly, the study took a practical step towards what is largely known in educational parlance as curriculum design with a view to proffering an alternative model derived from the Islamic heritage that is capable of taking care of the inadequacies in both the dominant Western and the dominant Islamic models The designing of the alternative offered by this study was grounded on the rationale that it was the incursion of secularism in the form of materialism and utilitarianism into the Islamic educational tradition that changed its landscape. The comparative evaluation of the models revealed some indebtedness of the dominant Islamic model to the dominant Western model. The comparative evaluation also revealed that the dominant Islamic model offers some idea to the IBTEC and also has several merits which make it more relevant to the Muslims than are the Western models. The end-product of the study is an Islamic-based teacher education curriculum (IBTEC) model whose core principles were derived from the Qur’an, Hadith and contemporary scholarship on the professional practices of teacher education.