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The volume presents international collaborative and comparative approaches in teacher education, addressing researchers, teachers, and other educational professionals who are interested in the following topics: ▶ Binational research perspectives on teacher education in South Africa and Germany ▶ Inclusion and educational equity ▶ Professionalization and mentoring ▶ Curricular characteristics and pedagogical content knowledge in education in economics, biology, and physical chemistry ▶ Education for sustainable development as a growing cross-sectional topic The results shed light on similarities and on different challenges experienced within the South African and the German educational, historical, socio-political, and institutional contexts. They reveal the struggles towards the best possible preparation of future teachers, and introduce the Wits School of Education and the Tübingen School of Education as players who consistently and energetically advance teacher education, based on research, relevance, and responsibility. Successful international collaboration has the ability to generate new impulses, increase global awareness of whole institutions, and open horizons for mutual understanding in academia. Wits School of Education and Tübingen School of Education are thankful for the support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), from the excellency funding of the University of Tübingen, and from the Global South Center, University of Tübingen.

In this chapter, we reflect on how Schools of Education position themselves for identity and acknowledgement globally, and how this applies in the context of a top-ranked South African university, Wits University, which asserts a research-led identity and vision. We look closely at the Wits School of Education (WSoE), whose origins are rooted in a policy process of re-structuring the higher education landscape under the first democratic government. After a brief historical summary of teacher education and its transformation, we give an overview of the policy for the development of teachers in South Africa, and proceed with the WsoE's development of sustainable research capacity. We outline and reflect on the effect of the School's research development strategies, which include the School's rebranding of its vision, institutional re-structuring, and an expanded research-collaboration footprint to include the Tübingen School of Education, whose research strategy is outlined in Chapter 2. The chapter closes with recommendations for continued developments.

In this chapter, we examine the notion of teacher education in South Africa, exploring its roots in the highly contentious and divisive era of Apartheid and the changes that have taken place since the attainment of democracy in 1994. We argue that teacher education is central to the training and education of good teachers, who are the key custodians of quality education. We further suggest that the transformational ambitions of the post-democratic government have only been achieved to a limited extent in teacher education. Much of the transformation has been symbolic, in terms of new policy formulations aimed at expanding the access of previously disadvantaged groups of university aspirants to teacher education programs.

The collaboration between the Wits School of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Tübingen School of Education at the University of Tübingen began in 2019 with mutual visits to both universities. Both institutions pursue similar goals: research-based teacher education, support of junior academics, collaboration with faculties or other university-wide institutions, addressing and incorporating urgent societal and global challenges, and working with a broad spectrum of involved disciplines. Researchers from both Schools realized their shared interests and challenges, and began to work on questions of teacher education collaboratively and binationally. Teams were created between researchers from corresponding departments in both institutions. The concept of this book requires either a comparative research approach between the two locations Wits and Tübingen or a binational approach addressing a joint question.