This study is an on-going research that aim to explore pre-service and in-service teachers’ conception of ‘a teacher’ at the beginning of their initial teacher training program. This particular study administered an open ended questionnaire that consists of 4 questions to 12 pre-service science teachers and 7 in-service science teachers during the first session of the initial teacher training programme. The open ended questionnaire explores the teachers’ conception of what makes a teacher, a good teacher, an excellent teacher and a 21^st century teacher. A thematic analysis will be conducted by two researchers in order to ensure trustworthiness of the emerging themes that will be found from the data. One of the potential contributions from the findings of this research will be in the discourse of how pre-service and in service science teachers’ construct their conceptions on the different dimensions of a teacher i.e. from good to a 21^st century teacher. In addition, the findings can be useful in developing teacher education programme.