Abstract
Teacher education occurs along a continuum that encompasses teacher candidate recruitment, teacher candidate preparation, novice teacher induction, teacher professional development, and advanced teacher qualifications. Since the formation of the state in 1971, teacher recruitment and teacher education in the UAE have undergone several stages of development, beginning with the sourcing of teachers from the Arab world, through the establishment of in-country teacher education programs designed to produce native teachers, to the hiring of teachers from high performing school systems in the Anglophone world. Teacher education is quite a challenging enterprise, being impacted by changes in the constantly evolving education system in this young nation. High-quality teacher education candidates can be elusive, and it is difficult to attract nationals to teaching, especially males. Yet, at the same time, there are opportunities for teacher education as the country works valiantly to raise educational standards, including the development of Arabic language teacher education, the provision of continuing professional development around teacher licensure, and induction programs for novice teachers.
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In order to avoid confusion between ‘students’ as learners in school and ‘students’ as learners in a teacher education program, the term ‘teacher candidate’ will be used throughout this paper to refer to those who are learning to become teachers. This term is consistent with the language used by teacher education accrediting bodies, such as the US-based CAEP (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation).
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Gallagher, K. (2019). Challenges and Opportunities in Sourcing, Preparing and Developing a Teaching Force for the UAE. In: Gallagher, K. (eds) Education in the United Arab Emirates. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7736-5_8
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