Chapter 5: Creating a Doctoral Network for Teacher Education in Africa

In this chapter, we present a framework for the creation of a Doctoral Network in Teacher Education in Africa (DNTEA). The DNTEA will have a strong focus in and on Africa, while taking a globally connected approach. The rationale for the creation of a DNTEA is to generate knowledge in teacher education to support Sustainable Development Goal #4 and to leverage the potential of doctoral networks for indigenous knowledge creation in Africa, by African scholars. It will frame the need for a DNTEA within the strategic planning of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Teacher Task Force, Agenda 2063 of the African Union and the outcome statement of the UNESCO Teacher Task Force 10th Policy Dialogue Forum in Lomé, Togo in September 2017. More especially, it will address a research-based approach to policy decisions in order to foreground the need for investment in the future of African scholarship in teacher education. It will also highlight the practical and historical factors that may impact on the creation of a DNTEA. Challenges for a DNTEA will be conceptualized against the current decolonization imperative and the criticality of indigenous knowledge creation. Theoretical and linguistic challenges in doctoral education in Africa will be accentuated and the features of a doctoral network that spans Anglophone, Lusophone, Francophone, and Arabic Africa will be explicated. Creating awareness of African epistemologies, and indigenous pedagogical and research practices on the continent will be given prominence. In addition, it will create opportunities for the development of sensitive theories that will capture and better explain indigenous behaviors. DNTEA therefore purports to accelerate connectivity, increase continental collaboration, and to build innovative research partnerships on doctoral and teacher education.