Journal of Education for Teaching, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1999 Initial Teacher Education in a Changing South Africa: experiences, re¯ections and challenges MAUREEN ROBINSON Faculty of Education, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, South Africa ABSTRACT Ten years of experience as a teacher educator in the pre-service teacher education programme at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa, a university serving historically disadvantaged groups, are discussed drawing on many debates and discussions. The challenge of developing a pre-service programme in South Africa within a social± reconstructionist orientation is discussed. INTRODUCTION The ®rst democratic elections for all South Africans, regardless of colour or creed, were held in 1994 and ended 40 years of entrenched racial discrimination, termed the policy of apartheid. The period since then has been the ®rst time that South African teacher educators could seriously begin to educate a new generation of post-apartheid teachers. As a teacher educator myself, I have been deeply involved for about 10 years in the conceptualising, organising and teaching of the pre-service teacher education programme at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), a `historically black’ university near Cape Town, South Africa. This article draws on the many debates and discussions generated in that ®eld, and discusses some of my thoughts and observations regarding the challenges of pre-service teaching in a changing society. The one year pre-service teacher education programme at UWC resembles many such programmes around the world. Students are expected to complete two Subject Method courses in the school subjects they plan to teach, as well as a general course entitled `Preparing to teach in the South today’, which is offered to the whole group of students. Ten weeks are also spent doing teaching practice in local schools. In recent years a number of changes have occurred in the UWC teacher education programme as teacher educators have attempted to insert pre-service teacher education more deliberately into the strategies for reconstruction and development of the country. This attempt is due in part to the social orientation of the UWC teacher educators themselves, and is linked to the fact that the vast majority of the students at UWC are from racial and social groups who have been extremely disadvantaged by the long years of ISSN 0260-7476 (print)/ISSN 1360-0540 (online)/99/030191-11 Ó 1999 Journal of Education for Teaching