Research Coordination Unit (RCU)

Kindu Nibret Tsegaye,

Research Coordination Unit Representative

Gondar College of Teachers Education, Research Coordination Unit (RCU)

Telephone:     +251-581-110672

Mobile           +251-913-678038

Fax:                 +251-581-112010

P.O. Box: 176, RCU, Gondar CTE, Gondar, Ethiopia

E-mail: research.@gcte.edu.et

Research and Publication  

Background                          

Gondar College of Teachers Education is home to veteran teacher educators in teaching-learning, research, and community services. Research endeavor in Gondar College is not a recent phenomenon; it has a very long history.

The college has introduced action research to local schools many years ago by working together with the QEP program. Besides, college teacher educators are doing original kinds of action and/or fundamental research works. The research endeavor of the college is being coordinated and run by the Research Coordination Unit (RCU). The RCU is working to initiate, coordinate, and undertake research processes and gives feedback to research activities in the college.

Summary of research activities in the last five years by department and research types (2007-2011E.C) in the college, Gondar CTE

To communicate the research outputs to the end-users, there is an annual research conference in the college for internal, zonal, and national papers. Besides, the RCU publishes high-tier articles in a peer-reviewed journal entitled “Journal of Educational Research (Gondar)”. The RCU has the mandate to coordinate and support the dissemination of the published articles. Building the research capacity of teacher educators in the college and teachers in primary school via training and encouraging them to carry out research related to educational activities are the focus areas of RCU. The RCU is working on:

• Building capacity of both teacher educators and primary school teachers to take an active role in research to solve educational problems at different scope and depth.
• Conducting annual (Zonal and internal) research symposia to create opportunities to share experiences and scale up best practices among primary school teachers and the college community.
• Publishing selected research articles in the journal and disseminating the findings and recommendations for experiences to be better circulated.
• Conducting research focusing on major educational problems prevailing in Central, West, and North Gondar Administrative Zones so that concerned bodies will be able to see and use scientific findings and scholarly recommendations.

Publication            

Gondar College of Teachers Education has been publishing research outputs. The college publication has received International Standard Serial Number (ISSN: 2518-282X), with key title: Journal of educational research (Gondar) abbreviated as J. educ. res. The first issue of the journal publication appeared in July 2016 and appears once a year in print form. Abstracts of the published articles in the journal are available here. Also, high-quality research outs in the college have been published by the Regional Education Bureau in the journal name “Journal of Teacher Education” and in “National Proceedings” organized by various colleges in the region, Amhara, Ethiopia.

Research Guidelines and Thematic Areas

The research process in the college is supported by guidelines to assist staff researchers in their execution of research activity. The various elements of the guidelines for both action research and fundamental research have been developed and are being used in the college (access here). To focus and give directions to a range of research activities in the college, the RCU has identified the following key topics as the research thematic areas.

 Completed Research Projects

In partnership with governmental and non-governmental organizations, the college RCU had carried out several educational research works. Recently, the college had completed a research work on “Assessment for Learning at primary schools in North Gondar administrative zone” with a grant from UNICEF. Also, there had been many studies to assess the execution of various study programs in the region The RCU is continuing its commitment to work further on education-related research with the involvement of government institutions, private sector, civil society organizations, and others that will use the research outcomes to address societal problems. Some of the research projects completed in the last decade by the college are described below.

Organization of the RCU

Deans of the college and Research Coordination Unit are the two bodies that are responsible for the successful completion of the project. Besides, different teams who are responsible for different tasks will share the responsibility so that different research activities will be successfully put into action.