Exploring the impact of the Teacher Education Curriculum on 21st-century skill development among pre-Service teachers at a selected rural university

The study critically examined and interpreted the effect of the Teacher Education Curriculum on the fostering of 21st-century skills, such as collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication—among pre-service teachers in an under-resourced rural South African university. Grounded in Self-Regulated Learning, technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, and Social Justice Pedagogy, the study adopted a descriptive survey design for an evaluation into how well the Teacher Education Curriculum really developed such skills. A purposive random sampling technique selected participants of 384 pre-service teachers. Descriptive statistics and reliability analyses of quantitative data indicated that in the teaching process of the Teacher Education Curriculum, there was moderate to strong integration of collaborative and communicative skills while critical-thinking and creative-thinking skills were somewhat unequally integrated within different modules. However, the results pointed out certain systemic bottlenecks, such as inadequate digital infrastructure, scarce professional development, and inequality in information and communication the technology resource access, all hindering wide realisation of 21st-century skills. Thus, the study recommends curriculum reform, participatory learning, inquiry-based pedagogies, and digital literacy training. Furthermore, institutional investment must upgrade the faculty through training, and make institutional resources fairly distributed to potentially address socioeconomic imbalance. Linking empirical evidence with theoretical frameworks and research questions, therefore, the study contributes insights in the national and global domain of teacher education reform. The study recommends longitudinal and comparative studies to evaluate the Teacher Education Curriculum’s potential as a transformative tool working in contexts of under-resourced education.