ABSTRACT
The effectiveness of an internship largely depends on the quality of guidance and support offered to the student-teachers. Such support determines their performance in future jobs and helps in constructing a quality teacher identity. Using a concurrent mixed methods design, this chapter explores the extent to which quality internship support to student-teachers at the University of Rwanda – College of Education (UR-CE) equips future teachers with subject-curricular-pedagogic knowledge. Data were collected from 83 student-teachers involved in teaching internships across the country, who filled in the online survey questionnaire, and 20 interviews with key informants. The findings suggest that student-interns received various support to strengthen their subject content, pedagogical and skills knowledge. School community, peer-interns and teachers offered high-level support compared to UR-CE lecturers. Despite the positive appreciation of their supervisory work, many UR-CE lecturers were not fully available. The overall evaluation is the effectiveness of the internship as it contributes to acquiring best practices for the teachers-in-making or the teachers-to-be. The authors recommend more effective support to equip student-teachers with quality subject-curriculum-pedagogic know-how for quality service when they join the teaching profession.
