The changes in the learning environment involve various learning methods. The development of an effective learning environment requires a caring culture. To promote it is to identify elements of a caring culture and the importance of culture of learning in our universities. The purpose of this project is to explore in a research group what level of caring culture the students bring when they arrive at the university of Fort Hare. Entry level students will be our research groups in both phases, Foundation, and Intermediate phase. The result of this project will be used in a comparative study with the focus group (Fourth year of 2024). The method used in this project is a mixed method. This approach will be used because combining both methodologies will ensure that the limitations of one type of data are balanced by the strengths of another. It will also allow the researchers to explore diverse perspectives and allow a better understanding of a caring culture. The participants used were Bachelor of Education first year students in Foundation and Intermediate phase. The instruments used were structured questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The semi-structured interviews will focus on the students that need our services related to assisting, caring, support. The study adopted descriptive statistics using mean, median and mode. After semi- structured interviews have been conducted, recorded information was organized and group together into patterns called themes.

Keywords: Pre-service teachers, diversity, caring, ubuntu.