Value-Awareness Leadership: A Paradigm for Enhancing Ethical Practices in Teacher Education

Leadership that shares values in educational institutions can be essential in the effective promotion of ethical values and practices. Nonetheless, the use of this leadership to enhance ethical practices in teacher education has not been thoroughly explored and needs additional study. The purpose of this research is to analyse how value-awareness leadership can enhance ethical practices in primary teacher colleges in Kenya by applying philosophical methods of phenomenology and analysis. In the context of phenomenology, interviews were conducted with 35 participants. Purposively chosen participants included 7 Principals, 7 Deputy Principals, 7 Deans of students, 7 top Student leaders; all from public teachers training colleges (TTCs), 4 regional Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (QASOs), and 3 regional Teachers Service Commission (TSC) officers. Semi-structured interview schedules were used to collect qualitative data, which was later analysed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that value-awareness leadership fostered a value-based culture which augmented ethical behaviours in TTCs. The research also suggests a philosophical model of value-awareness leadership that entrenches ethical practices based on moral duty and moral goodness.