Imagining a Writing Centre for Meeting Student Needs

This research is an exploratory study of pre-service teacher education students need for learning support in writing. The participants were 81 student-teachers enrolled for a Bachelor’s of Elementary Education (B.El.Ed.) degree programme at Department of Elementary Education at University of Delhi. The study was data-driven as the need was explored by administering a questionnaire to student-teacher participants. The focus was on gathering empirical data on what their perceived writing needs were and how these could be addressed. The participant responses overwhelmingly articulated a gap between their writing skills and the writing demands of their curriculum. The need for creating a writing centre (henceforth WC) aimed at learning support for writing was reported while also explicating the nature of support that students seek. The findings demonstrate necessity, benefits and wide-ranging value of establishment of a WC at undergraduate institutions of teacher education. This is a pressing student need that begs the attention of educational administrators, policy-makers and higher education faculty in the global south.