Abstract: One of university administrators’ key mandates is to close the gap between guiding standards and the practice of quality assurance. This study explored teacher trainees’ perceptions of administrators’ application of guiding standards during quality assurance practice in selected teacher training universities in Mozambique. Descriptive survey design, which has ability to collect precise opinions on targeted phenomena was used. The target population was students in fourth year in government teacher training universities in Mozambique. Permission for the study was obtained from the Ministry of Higher Education and Technology. Confidentiality was assured. All information would be used for research purposes. For validity, expert opinion was sought from the researcher’s supervisors. Reliability was ensured at 0.93 using Cronbach Alpha Coefficient. Data was collected from 242 randomly sampled fourth year teacher trainees using questionnaires. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 29. Descriptive statistics were mainly used to analyze data. Findings showed that Administrators excelled in marketing developmental aspirations and in international cooperation. The study however showed the need to scale up on ensuring visibility of standard guidelines, peer assessment and marrying of theory and practice among others. These had heterogeneous standard deviations of 1.54; 2.19; 2.14 respectively. Key recommendations included: ensuring visibility of universities’ standard declarations and the sourcing of more resources to ease the process of marrying theory with practice during teacher training. Also, that universities be well resourced in order to be more inclusive of disabled teacher trainees. Further, studies are required to explore practical acceptable ways of promoting peer assessment.

Abstract: Guiding standards are essential for the successful practice of quality assurance controls and goal achievement. However, despite clear standards, the teacher education system globally still experiences challenges. Conducted in four government universities in Mozambique over a period of 2 years in Manica, Sofala, Inhambane and Zambezia provinces, this study examined participants’ familiarity with guiding standards for quality assurance in teacher training. The research questions were, ‘How familiar are fourth year teacher education students in Mozambican universities with the standards for quality assurance? and ‘Are there Relationships among Quality Assurance Guiding Standards?’ The descriptive survey design was used. The target population were teacher trainees in fourth year. 242 questionnaire respondents (129 males and 113 females) were selected using simple random sampling, with ages ranging from 18 to 50 years. The response rate was 81.2%. The reliability test on questionnaire items established a Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.921. Findings showed a high standard deviation on items that sought to ascertain existence of a QA (Quality Assurance) department (1.02023). Heterogeneous responses on the question that sought to confirm the existence of a quality assurance department showed moderate evidence of the implementation of guiding standards. A strong positive relationship was also found when administration functions were correlated with lecturer roles (.650). The study recommended establishment of a QA department in teacher training universities; and that Ministry of Education, Science and Technology ensures that all stakeholders in teacher training universities are familiarized with QA standards and guidelines through training, workshops, induction and orientation programs.