Challenges faced by prospective teachers in universities and solution proposals

Abstract

The number of universities in Turkey has reached to 193, among which 72 of them have their own faculties of education. The problem of quantity in teacher training seems to be eliminated; however, training qualified teachers has become a prioritized issue. Many responsibilities fall to universities in training qualified teachers including determining and solving the educational challenges of prospective teachers. Hence, this study elicits the challenges the prospective teachers face at the universities and their solution proposals. In this context, an open-ended question was raised to 140 prospective teachers that is selected with convenience sampling method. Sources of challenges and their respective solution proposals for prospective teachers are thematized under administration, instructor, physical, democracy and so on. The most common challenge they encounter is related with physical facilities and the least is related with democracy. Eliminating these challenges based on the solutions provided will contribute to training qualified teachers.