Chronicles of wasted time? Initial teacher education in England: 1960-1999.

Introduction

Initial teacher education has been a significant part of education policy in Britain since the late 1940s when emergency training was necessary to enable schools to have sufficient staff to teach the children in the immediate post-war period. Even before the post-war crisis in teacher recruitment was fully recognised, the structure and content of teacher education was subject to government intervention. This paper will examine how government interventions have shaped teacher education from the early 1960s, trace the evolution of policy up to and including the advent of New Labour, and analyse the key features of current government initiatives in this area.

In order to understand the major concerns in each of these policy phases, it is necessary to note that the argument about whether or not to train potential teachers, the use of the monitorial system of teacher training where student teachers learn by observing more experienced colleagues at work in the classroom, attempts to involve universities in teacher education, the development of monotechnic colleges of education, the supply of teachers and the attempts of local and national government to determine the extent and nature of training for teachers can all be traced back to the 19th century (Dent, 1977). The framework for teacher education as it now exists, however, has its genesis in the McNair Report (Committee to Consider, 1944) which considered the principles which should inform teacher recruitment, supply and training. As a result of this report, area training organisations (ATOs) were established, based on university departments of education, to encourage university participation in teacher education, to plan the development of teacher training in their areas and to supervise the work of the growing number of training colleges for teachers. The immediate problem confronting the ATOs and their colleges was that of teacher supply. The school population increased rapidly in the 1950s and the annual output of teachers needed to increase to cope. Quantity rather than quality was the dominant factor (Lawton, 1988). Teacher supply was still the major problem facing the initial teacher education system by 1960.

It has been argued elsewhere (Bell, 1999) that education policy in Britain, from the 1960s onwards, has developed through a four-stage process:

1 Social democratic phase (1960-1973) characterised by a rapidly increasing school pupil population, expansion and a broad consensus about the nature of the educative process which was shared by politicians, administrators and teacher trainers.

2 Resource constrained phase (1973-1987) in which there was a growing emphasis on management, especially the management of resources including teachers, a debate about the nature and purpose of education, a growing concern about the quality and relevance of teaching and of teacher training, a decline in the morale of teachers as career opportunities became more limited, increasing state intervention in the curriculum, the targeting of funding, the limiting of equality of opportunity and experiments with alternative funding strategies.

3 Market phase (1988-1996) in which opportunities were available for growth as those areas defined as successful were encouraged to expand while schools and colleges branded as failures contracted or closed. Site-based management within a tightly prescribed and monitored National Curriculum framework emerged, responsibility for which was vested in lay governors rather than the educational professionals whose status and autonomy was being eroded. The National Curriculum placed increasing emphasis on science, technology and information technology although many schools had neither the staff nor the equipment to deliver what was required and teacher training could not keep up with the demand for such teachers. The curriculum both in schools and in initial teacher training concentrated far more on basic subjects, formally taught to achieve instrumental outcomes. Resource allocation became the function of the education market place.

4 Excellence phase (1997 onward) placed education at the centre of New Labour's economic and social agenda. Educational policies were designed to produce a work force which is literate, numerate and has information and communication technology skills. When New Labour came to power, it embarked on the implementation of an education policy that was already well formulated. This policy was outlined in a White Paper, Excellence in schools (Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), 1997), from which the fourth phase of educational policy has taken its name.

These policy phases each had implications for, and helped to shape, initial teacher education although the nature of government intervention changed significantly over the four decades. In the 1960s, the main thrust of that intervention was to ensure an adequate supply of teachers.

Social democratic phase (1960-1973): Expansion and independence

In this period, teacher education was largely provided by small teacher training colleges or university departments of education who tended to operate independently of each other. Throughout the 1960s, the most significant problem facing the various governments as far as initial teacher education was concerned remained that of supplying a sufficient number of teachers to meet the demand created by the increasing size of the child population which peaked in 1964 at 876 000 (Saran, 1988). In 1960, the length of the training was extended from two to three years. By 1964, there were 70 000 students in initial teacher education courses and this increased to 120 000 in 1972. The two main elements of the new courses were to be the study of theory and practice of education and, mainly for personal development, the study of one or two subjects from the school curriculum (Dent, 1997). There were also other views:

   Most people wished to add a compulsory course in English, biased towards
   its use as a means of communication. Many wanted a survey of contemporary
   affairs ... an introduction to the sociological background of education. A
   strong body of opinion desired compulsory mathematics and compulsory
   science had its advocates. (p. 137)

There was also considerable disagreement about whether the main emphasis in the new courses should be on personal development or professional training, about whether the emphasis in the training aspect of the course should be theoretical or practical and about the nature and optimum length of school practice (Ministry of Education, 1957). Many of these issues were resolved at an institutional rather than at a policy level with the result that the nature and quality of initial teacher education varied considerably between providers.

Following the adoption of the recommendations in the Robbins Report (Committee on Higher Education, 1963) by the Conservative Government, teacher training colleges were redesignated colleges of education and four-year Bachelor of Education (BEd) courses were introduced in initial teacher education for a select few deemed worthy of graduate status. The move towards an all-graduate profession, long the objective of teachers' professional associations, had started but the way ahead was by no means straightforward. Many of the universities in the ATOs were reluctant to award more than general, pass or unclassified honours degrees. Teachers holding BEd degrees would, therefore, be denied both the status and the full financial benefits which other honours graduates in teaching enjoyed. There were also concerns about the content of the new degrees. Some universities were reluctant to include practical subjects such as domestic science, physical education and art and crafts. In the event, this problem was overcome in many institutions by giving the fourth year an academic rather than a practical focus. The disciplines of education, history, philosophy, psychology and sociology were explored at greater length and in greater depth. By 1969, all universities which validated college of education courses had awarded their first BEd degrees but the numbers of students on such courses remained small, 10 per cent by 1972, far short of the Robbins Report target of 25 per cent (Dent, 1977). This was due in no small measure to the way in which entry to the BEd was determined and to the extent of control exerted by university departments of education. In many colleges, students had to await the successful award of a certificate in education at an appropriate level before proceeding to the fourth year, the successful completion of which would confirm graduate status.

There were also concerns expressed about the degree itself and about the role of the universities in its validation which, according to the Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, was in danger of seriously debasing the standing of the degree (Willey & Maddison, 1971). Partly as a result of the disquiet about the influence of universities on the BEd, an alternative form of validation was sought. The Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) was established by the outgoing Conservative Government in 1963 to oversee academic standards in the burgeoning `public' sector of higher education, that is, those institutions of higher education that were separate from universities and controlled by local education authorities (LEAs). In 1965, the new Labour Government followed the policy of its Conservative predecessor and in 1966 plans were announced to establish 30 polytechnics by 1972. Colleges of education were encouraged to look for validation towards public sector institutions rather than universities (Lawton, 1988). In 1972, the CNAA began to validate BEd degrees. The binary divided between universities and public sector institutions was established. In June 1973, a joint University Grants Committee and CNAA Study Group proposed a new BEd which would integrate initial teacher education fully into its structure rather than use the Certificate in Education as a prerequisite for entry to the degree.

Throughout this period, there was widespread criticism of initial teacher education. ATOs were believed to be ineffective, the governance of colleges isolated and authoritarian, the quality of teaching poor, the curriculum overly theoretical and irrelevant to work in schools and the practice of teaching poorly organised (Lawton, 1988). In 1970, the then Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science (DES), Margaret Thatcher, appointed a Committee of Inquiry (1972) chaired by Lord James of Rusholme, Vice Chancellor of York University, to review the present arrangements for the education and training of teachers. The James Report (Committee of Inquiry, 1972) proposed a three-stage approach to teacher education. The first stage, or cycle in the terminology of the report, would be subject study to degree (two year) or diploma in education (one year) level for the personal education of the intending teacher. The second stage would last two years, the first of which would consist of preparation for teaching rather than a formal course in education theory and the second year would be spent by students entirely in school as `licensed teachers'. The third cycle was for the continued professional development of serving teachers. The Government's response to the James Report came in a White Paper with what must be one of the most misleading titles ever attributed to such a document, Education: A framework for expansion (DES, 1972). The proposals for cycle one were accepted, the other proposals largely rejected. More importantly, however, the White Paper challenged the James Committee's assumption that universities and colleges of education would continue to work together. The framework for expansion outlined in the White Paper was for a CNAA validated expansion based on the development of major institutions of higher education in the public sector. Within this framework, some colleges of education would either singly or jointly achieve the status of a major institution and others would combine with polytechnics. Still others might:

   continue to be needed exclusively for the purposes of teacher education
   with increasing emphasis on in-service rather than initial training ...
   Others may find a place in the expansion of teachers' and professional
   centres. Some must face the possibility that in due course they will have
   to be converted to new purposes; some may need to close (DES, 1972, p. 44).

This last statement was made at the same time as DES planners were beginning to prepare for the reduction in size of the school-age population and the concomitant decrease in the demand for teachers. The framework for expansion was soon to become a policy of contraction (Lawton, 1988).

Resource constrained phase (1973-1987): Contraction and conformity

The impact of the decrease in pupil numbers and the 1973 oil crisis was at least as great on colleges of education as it was on schools. By 1976, there were approximately 81 000 teacher education places. It was planned to reduce this number to 45 000 by the end of the decade and to 18 000 by the mid 1980s (Dent, 1977; Lawton, 1988). Contraction was not uniform. Universities contracted less than public sector institutions and, at the same time, increased their primary education work. A shift from four-year training to shorter periods began and the expansion of one-year Postgraduate Certificates in Education (PGCE) was encouraged (Lawton, 1988). This led to significant changes in the governance of initial teacher education. LEAs were required to submit plans for the local and regional restructuring of teacher training provision (DES, 1972), identifying proposed mergers and closures. Many small colleges of education closed, others merged with larger institutions either voluntarily or against the wishes of the staff. In most cases, the union was between polytechnics and colleges, both public sector institutions. In some instances; fierce disputes took place about the proposed choice of partner, notably Brighton and Coventry where the LEAs proposed mergers with polytechnics and the colleges desired mergers with universities. The process of merger continued into the late 1980s.

The Advisory Committee on the Supply and Training of Teachers (ACSET) was established in 1978. Although this had as its primary concern the supply of teachers, the period of the teacher shortages had gone, at least temporarily, and the main problem was a teacher surplus. ACSET soon became more concerned about issues of quality rather than those of supply. The nature of the system changed to such an extent that it could be said:

   Thus has ended a system of teacher education which has endured for nearly
   two centuries ... the curriculum and the methods ... though progressively
   altered and improved ... remained basically the same. The system had many
   defects, but it was not without its virtues. It has been deliberately
   destroyed. (Dent, 1977, pp. 155-156)

A very real shift was, therefore, being experienced from a social democratic policy phase concerned with expansion and, perhaps of necessity, less concerned for both quality of process and quality of output to a less well-resourced phase in which cost effectiveness and quality would determine the dominant discourse.

A series of government documents focused on initial teacher education. Teacher training and the secondary school (DES, 1981) argued that courses should be more relevant to work in schools and that teachers should be more involved in initial teacher education. The new teacher in school (DES, 1982) claimed that almost a quarter of new teachers lacked some of the skills necessary to be effective and felt ill-prepared for their entry into the classroom. Inevitably, teacher educators shouldered much of the blame for this because unsuitable candidates were being accepted into courses and the courses themselves failed to concentrate on the practical requirements of teaching and were suffused with inappropriate educational theory. An ACSET report, Teaching in schools: The content of initial training (DES, 1983a) argued for a more selective approach to choosing initial teacher education students and more rigorous processes of eliminating unsuitable students during training. This document also considered the nature of subject knowledge required by newly qualified teachers and called for a more extensive partnership with teachers in schools in the training ,of new teachers. Teacher education providers were gradually being required to conform to the expectations of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools (HMI) and civil servants in the DES who were beginning to take an interest in initial teacher education. This message was reinforced in Teaching quality (DES, 1983b) which confirmed the Government's intention to move towards an all-graduate teaching profession and reinforced the need to ensure that teacher education had the depth and rigour commensurate with graduate status. These two documents signalled a growing concern on the part of government about the quality of initial teacher education and the capabilities of newly qualified teachers.

This new emphasis on quality of output soon produced a bureaucratic quality control mechanism the like of which had not been experienced before in higher education. The Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) was established in 1984. It had, as its remit, the task of ensuring that all initial teacher education courses met the requirements now spelled out for the first time in a government circular, Initial teacher training: Approval of courses (DES, 1984). This circular specified entry qualifications and established minimum course length. It required those teaching initial teacher education (ITE) courses to have had recent successful classroom experience. It also reopened the debate about the relationship between theory and practice in ITE. This circular provided the framework for CATE visits. The visiting CATE assessors had the power to withdraw accreditation from ITE providers if the conditions of the circular were not being met. These visits generated vast quantities of self-justificatory paper work but produced little in the way of radical restructuring of ITE. The importance of CATE lies not in what it achieved but in the extent to which it contained the essential elements for a new era of control over ITE. It showed how ITE providers could be coerced by a process of inspection into following prescriptions announced in government circulars. If an element of competition between providers and a strong link between perceived quality of provision and resource allocation could be established, then powerful mechanisms for control could be established. This was soon to happen as the newly re-elected 1987 Conservative Government pushed through its Education Reform Act 1988. As a result of this Act, teacher supply and the quality of newly qualified teachers both became policy issues at the same time.

Market phase (1988-1996): Partnership and the end of partnership

By 1988, education in Britain was again in crisis. A damaging struggle over teachers' pay had resulted in the Secretary of State for Education imposing a pay settlement and new conditions of service. The pupil population was no longer in decline and in some areas had begun to increase. The introduction of the National Curriculum placed additional burdens on teachers and generated demand, especially in primary schools, for teachers with different qualifications and skills (Tickle, 1994). It was estimated that 10.4 per cent of all graduates would be required if PGCE targets were to be achieved and in some subject areas the percentage was much greater (French 54%, mathematics 18%) (Interim Advisory Committee, 1988). By 1989, LEAs were reporting that the number of teachers they were able to recruit was more than matched by those leaving the profession (Tickle, 1994). One response to this was to propose a direct entry route into teaching that would combine a training program with supervision in school by a teacher-mentor over an unspecified period of time (DES, 1988). This licensed teacher scheme raised further questions about the quality of ITE.

CATE and HMI monitoring continued as the main quality assurance mechanism into the early 1990s, although quality was being redefined. Identifying and attaining the right balance between theory and practice was no longer central to determining quality. This debate over quality and the means to achieve it was about to be replaced by the imposition of competence criteria which focused on the outcomes of initial teacher education rather than on the processes of achieving them (DES, 1989). These competences were to apply to all forms of initial teacher training including the new licensed teacher scheme, although it was unclear how their achievement was to be measured. These CATE competences, as they became known, focused on subject knowledge and professional skills. They were criticised for their inadequacy as a preparation for teaching, for a failure to promote intellectual curiosity and for opening the door to an apprenticeship model of initial teacher training based on the transmission of craft knowledge through a process of mentoring (Tickle, 1994).

A powerful response to this critique of competence-based teacher training came from the New Right, represented by the Hillgate Group (1989) and Lawlor (1990) who condemned teacher training as unnecessary, intellectually inadequate and subversive. The only qualities required for successful teaching, it was claimed, were the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to transmit it to others. Teacher education should be replaced, they argued, by school-based training with no higher education input. The content of such training would consist entirely of the transmission of skills required to operate in the classroom and would be provided by experienced teachers. Quality control would be in the hands of HMIs who would test the extent to which trainee teachers had absorbed the necessary competencies to be proficient practitioners in the classroom. This technical rational view of teacher training based on the transmission of skills-based craft knowledge through apprenticeship had a simplicity about it that was too powerful for a Conservative Government to resist.

The Government set up the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) in 1994 to shape and fund the training of teachers and deployed the inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) to monitor the quality of training. CATE was abolished but its legacy remained. Government circulars (Department for Education (DFE) 1992, 1993) now tightly defined the content and arrangements for initial teacher training (ITT), including the nature of the higher education institution/school partnership. The introduction to Circular 9/92 enunciated three main principles on which teacher training, in future, would be based. These were that schools should play a much larger part in ITT as full partners of higher education institutions (HEIs); that the accreditation criteria for ITT courses should require HEIs, schools and students to focus on the competences of teaching; and that institutions rather than individual courses should be accredited for ITT (DFE, 1992). This last point was especially significant because it gave the TTA the power to close the entire ITT provision at any HEI if one program failed to meet the relevant criteria. The two circulars increased entry requirements and defined minimum numbers of days to be spent in schools. They also identified a wide range of competences in subject knowledge, subject application, class management, assessment and recording of pupils' progress and further professional development. These served to focus training firmly on classroom teaching and pupils' learning, not on wider educational matters and would form the basis for the inspection of ITT courses. These circulars marked the advent of a new form of partnership in ITT in which schools played a much more significant role and for which they were, for the first time, to receive payment. This shift in focus generated new questions about the role of higher education institutions in teacher training. It caused both the TTA and universities to consider how far there was a role at all for HEIs. The mechanistic thrust of the highly intrusive inspection process reinforced the view that teacher education was no longer an appropriate province for HEIs and caused many to review their provision.

Quality was to be inspected into the training process. The emphasis of the inspections was on passing judgement rather than on giving developmental support to those being inspected. An institution which failed to achieve one of the top two grades (out of four) was likely to have its intake target progressively reduced and with that, its funding. Five HEI providers had or were about to have accreditation withdrawn in 1996/97 (TTA, 199,6). As the TTA reported:

   The standards which providers of training must meet have been effectively
   enforced. Accreditation has been withdrawn from one unsatisfactory provider
   on initial teacher training and withdrawal procedures have been started in
   four other cases, taking account of OFSTED inspection evidence ... The TTA
   will also follow up the proposals made by the Secretary of State by
   consulting ... on performance tables for initial teacher training. (p. 12)

At the same time alternative routes into teaching were established. The TTA had, as one of its priorities, the promotion of non-traditional routes into ITT which it saw as essential if it was to meet its targets (TTA, 1996):

   We cannot afford to lose sight of more mature entrants, with existing
   financial commitments, or of those not wishing to return to the life of a
   student for whom non-traditional routes may be the most realistic path to
   teaching. (p. 11)

School-based ITT schemes were introduced in which in-school training was directly funded at a very favourable rate by the TTA and which required little input from HEIs. They were hailed as the new alternative to the hitherto HEI dominated routes into teaching. By 1996, they were training 655 students whereas licensed, overseas-trained and registered teacher schemes (the latter for graduates who preferred to work in a school and be paid rather than taking a PGCE) had 525 students. The largest alternative avenue, however, was university based. The Open University distance learning ITT program had 1667 students. Although HEI providers still trained the vast majority of students (27 900) the separation of teacher training from universities was well advanced and had become centralised in respect of the content and structure of courses, funding, accreditation and the monitoring of standards.

The education market in teacher education had arrived. Its underpinning assumptions of competition and exclusivity rather than collaboration and inclusivity informed market practices. There was a range of `products' from which students were able to choose in the form of alternative routes to a professional qualification. There was competition between those HEIs, by far the majority, who remained as ITE providers for both student numbers and school partnership places. The TTA also operated on the basis of market choice, seeking to transfer student numbers, and funding, to those institutions deemed by the inspection process to be `high quality' at the expense of those who were satisfactory. The accountability and control mechanisms through inspection linked to funding were fully developed and resulted in some courses being closed and numbers being reduced on many others, with concomitant loss of income. HEIs had to ensure that the students they recruited were up to standard, that they achieved predetermined levels of competence. They also had to ensure that teacher mentors in schools delivered school-based training as determined by the relevant circulars in spite of having no control over these teachers and no sanctions to deploy, there being a shortage of places for students in schools in most areas.

Excellence phase (1997 onwards): Standards and compliance

In June 1997, New Labour came to power carrying with it the expectations of many in higher education that things would change, that the role of the market would diminish and that a regime based on accountability and quality control would be replaced by one derived from professional dialogue and consultation. The Dearing Committee (National Committee of Inquiry, 1998) reported on its examination of the structure and function of higher education. This was seen as an opportunity to reconsider the major policy thrusts of the previous decade. In higher education generally and teacher education in particular, these expectations were soon dashed. Education was placed firmly at the centre of the Labour Government's agenda. It was to be the means to:

   overcome economic and social disadvantage and to make equality of
   opportunity a reality ... We are talking about investing in human capital
   in an age of knowledge. To compete in a global economy ... we will have to
   unlock the potential of every young person. (Department for Education and
   Employment (DfEE), 1997, p. 3)

The locksmiths were to be teachers:

   Teachers and heads are at the heart of our drive to raise standards. They
   above all hold the key to improving performance and remedying
   under-achievement. (p. 45)

At the very forefront of this development was to be the training of new teachers. A government in a hurry, as this one was and is, could not afford to wait for evolution. New Labour set about extending the revolution in initial teacher education that its Conservative predecessor had initiated. It argued in its first White Paper on education policy, Excellence in schools (DfEE, 1997):

   Training routes should be diverse and flexible so that training can be
   matched to the needs and circumstances of all those with the potential to
   succeed as teachers. (p. 46)

At the same time, standards were to be improved, as the following paragraphs indicate:

10 To raise standards we expect of schools and pupils, we must raise the standards we expect of new teachers.

11 We have launched a new core curriculum setting out in detail the knowledge, understanding and skills which all those training to teach primary schools must be able to use in relation to English and mathematics. Improving the skills of our new teachers is critical to achieving our literacy and numeracy targets. We have also announced more rigorous requirements for all courses--secondary and primary ... and new standards which all trainee teachers will be expected to reach in order to qualify.

12 The new teacher standards will apply to all trainees qualifying to teach from next summer ... The standards themselves will also provide a valuable new benchmark for schools in relation to target setting, performance management and assuring teacher effectiveness ... all training provision will continue to be subject to rigorous inspection ... and we will ensure that firm action is taken where training fails to match up to the new standards we have laid down. (p. 47)

This section in the White Paper exemplifies most of the issues that arise for teacher educators from government education policy. Paragraphs 10 and 11 link developments in teacher education closely to New Labour political imperatives, especially those associated with target setting. An interventionist stance has been adopted on teaching strategies in primary schools intended to ensure that, by 2002, 80 per cent of pupils aged 11 will attain the standard in English expected for their age group, that is, the average standard for the age group. In mathematics, 75 per cent of 11-year-olds will achieve the standard expected for their age group. Targets were also set to reduce exclusion and truancy by 30 per cent; to ensure that no child under the age of 7 is taught in a class of more than 30 and to connect every school to the information superhighway.

These targets were not set in isolation. Policies were established to achieve them. The national literacy strategy set out detailed teaching objectives to enable children to become fully literate and gave guidance on the implementation of the Literacy Hour which all primary schools were expected to adopt (DfEE, 1998b). This was meant to provide a practical structure which will enable teaching objectives to be achieved and the national targets for literacy to be attained. This was the first time that any government in the UK had instructed teachers in the detail of what to teach, how to teach it and how long to devote to it. The national numeracy strategy (DfEE, 1998a) appeared a few months later. It concentrated on whole class teaching, rote learning and mental arithmetic.

Not only is ITT being shaped to deliver this agenda, the agenda itself is shaping and constraining ITT. Circular 4/98 (DfEE, 1998d) makes it clear that:

   the requirements in this Circular will equip all new teachers with the
   knowledge, understanding and skills needed to play their part in raising
   pupil performance across the education system. (p. 3)

English and mathematics, interpreted through OFSTED inspections as literacy and numeracy, are to be the main focal points of primary ITT and must also form an important part of all other training programs. This document is a national curriculum for ITT. It specifies the essential core knowledge, understandings and skills for all trainees on all courses for English, mathematics, science and information technology (DfEE, 1998d). It also specifies how these areas, especially information technology, must be incorporated into other subject areas. The Green Paper, Teachers: Meeting the challenge of change (DfEE, 1998c), stated the position even more clearly:

   A new national curriculum for initial teacher training specifies the
   content which all trainees must learn in the core subjects of English,
   mathematics, science, and in the use of information technology in all
   subject teaching. All courses must implement these changes in full by
   September 1999 ... Every new teacher must have a thorough grounding in
   literacy, numeracy and ICT skills ... We propose to introduce skills tests
   which trainees would have to pass before they could be awarded Qualified
   Teacher Status. (DfEE, 1998c, p. 45)

The Green Paper also announced additional routes into the profession including a fast-track scheme for the most promising and able recruits and opportunities for graduates and undergraduates to act as part-time teaching associates who would receive school-based training to enable them to gain qualified teacher status while being paid as teaching assistants. The HEI involvement in such training is minimal. Thus a prescriptive and narrowly based curriculum for ITT is now replacing that defined in the circulars which emerged during the later stages of the Conservative Government in its market phase. HEIs are being marginalised, at least in some routes into teaching. This is a significant departure from earlier programs of teacher education which were based on an approach to teacher education underpinned by academic disciplines and practice informed by theory. Perhaps, in its pre-CATE form, teacher education was guilty of emphasising theory to the detriment of classroom-based practice. Now, however, the policy pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. ITE providers are now required to comply with the precise details of course structure, content and delivery within the time scales announced in various government circulars. Thus a situation has been created in which both the academic autonomy and professional integrity of those universities that provide initial teacher education are undermined and the quality of provision, at least in some respects, diminished.

The extent and pace of the changes required from university providers of initial teacher training has been counter-productive. Significant revisions to programs have been required before most courses have completed one full cycle and within a time scale that many providers find impossible because of institutional quality procedures. Many of the statements made by politicians about the shortcomings of ITT have been made before students have graduated from the very programs which had already been modified in order to meet the alleged shortcomings. Furthermore, because OFSTED inspections of ITT courses are always carried out based on the current regulations, rather than the regulations in operation when a particular program was designed, many hurried and inadequate modifications have had to be made to coherent and well-structured courses. As a result, courses are often operating under the provision of more than one circular, with different regulations, requirements and forms of assessment (Graham, 1997). This mitigates against the delivery of high-quality professional education and training.

This situation is exacerbated by the model of student learning pertaining to ITT that is articulated in the White Paper:

   We shall seek to ... ensure that teacher training is firmly rooted in the
   best classroom practice and [will] enable trainee teachers to learn by
   observing good and experienced teachers at work. (DfEE, 1997, p. 47)

The emphasis now being placed on classroom observation and practice guided by teacher mentors smacks of a return to the monitorial system of the 19th century and is based on an anti-theoretical and anti-intellectual approach to teacher education. Students do not learn merely by observation, exhortation and practice, as the position taken in the White Paper implies. Sound classroom experience must be an integral part of all teacher training but student teachers or trainees, in the current parlance, must be able to interpret that experience and locate it within a framework of understanding derived from the articulation between theory and practice that can only be achieved by going beyond direct experience and observation. As the Sutherland Report (the teacher education report commissioned for the Dearing Report) argued, the purpose of teacher education should be to produce professional teachers who have the theoretical knowledge and understanding, combined with practical skills and competences (Sutherland, 1998). Such a position, however, is inimical to a training process which focuses almost exclusively on practical outputs rather than processes which facilitate understanding. The shift from competences to standards reinforces this perspective.

The adoption of the term `standards' rather than `competences' represents far more than a semantic distinction. The paragraphs from the White Paper quoted above make considerable reference to standards, while Circular 4/98 contains the word 'standards' in its title and the opening sentence of its Annex A states:

   The standards set out in this document replace the more general
   `competences' set out in DFE Circulars 9/92 and 14/93 ... The standards
   apply to all trainees seeking Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and ... should
   be met by those to be assessed for QTS from May 1998 (DfEE, 1998d, p. 7)

The OFSTED (1999) overview report on secondary ITT rather disingenuously notes `there are differences between the competences and standards, but there is also continuity and they adopt similar organising principles' (p. 5). This fails to acknowledge the considerable distinction between the statements of competence in Circulars 9/92 and 14/93 and the definition of standards. Competences were expressed in a relatively general way. For example, the competence relating to the assessment and recording of pupil progress in Circular 9/92 (DfE, 1992) states that newly qualified teachers should be able to judge how well each pupil performs against appropriate criteria, assess and record systematically the progress on individual pupils, provide oral and written feedback, and prepare and present reports on pupils' progress. The same section in Circular 4/98 states that those to be awarded QTS:

must, when assessed, demonstrate that they: [original emphasis]

a. assess how well learning objectives have been achieved and use this assessment to improve specific aspects of teaching;

b. mark and monitor pupils' assigned classwork and homework, providing constructive oral and written feedback, and setting pupils' progress;

c. assess and record each pupil's progress ... through focused observation, questioning, testing, and marking ...;

h. understand and know how national, local comparative and school data ... can be used to set clear targets for pupil achievement. (DfEE, 1998d, p. 15)

This latter formulation has clearly been written to be as specific, explicit and assessable as possible. It details a level of specific performance to be achieved rather than a set of behaviours which form an approximation to what is desirable. The competences are a series of relative statements about performance. The standards are a set of technical rational absolutes, the attainment of which must be demonstrated if QTS is to be secured. The standards are to be attained by all ITT students and ensuring that this happens remains the responsibility of the HEIs, even where the larger part of the ITT programs are delivered in schools by teacher mentors. Compliance with standards has replaced professional dialogue. Here is a further illustration of the extent to which. New Labour has set out to control the curriculum for ITE in such a way as to preclude any institutional variation and flexibility. These standards are to be achieved by compulsion, conformity and uniformity rather than by consensual collegial professional action. This is a significant shift and one which has evolved from, and is an extension to, the market phase of ITE.

The education market place, or rather the employment market more generally, continues to impact on ITE in another way, through the capacity (or incapacity) of HEIs and other providers to recruit sufficient trainee teachers, although increasingly stringent entry requirements and course demands would seem to suggest otherwise. Applications for primary places had, by 1998, declined by a third in two years; PGCE programs under-recruited by 10 per cent overall and by significantly larger percentages in shortage subject areas such as physics (down 36%), chemistry and German (down 23%) and mathematics (down 22%) (Tysome, 1998). Teachers unions, usually the first and most accurate harbingers of a teacher shortage, warned that many schools in inner city areas would not be able to attract teachers and that there was an impending national shortage of teachers in the sciences and languages (Barnard, 1998).

The higher education teacher training providers echoed the views expressed by the unions:

   We now have a mounting crisis in teacher supply. There is a real problem
   with secondary schools and a growing problem in primaries where the decline
   in applications is alarming ... we now have a crisis. (M. Newby, Chair of
   the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, quoted in Guardian
   Higher, 30 March 1999, p. i)

The Government's response was to reduce the targets for ITE in HEIs and to transfer the numbers to the new alternative routes into the profession. At the same time, The Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett, announced that his officials would take over the responsibility for teacher supply. It remains to be seen if this strategy succeeds.

Conclusion

The story of ITE in England between 1960 and 1999 is one of gradually increasing government intervention in the structure, content and delivery of an educative process at a time when teacher autonomy and the status of teaching as a profession has been eroded (Bell, 1999). Throughout this period, the matter of teacher recruitment and supply has never been satisfactorily resolved. Successive governments have lurched from teacher shortages to over-supply and back to shortage again. New Labour appears to be no nearer to resolving this problem than was the Wilson Government in the mid 1960s in spite of being much more interventionist in the structuring of teacher training. The underlying cause of this failure to recruit sufficient teachers may have much to do with the opprobrium that has been heaped upon the profession in the last two decades. Even Anthea Millett, the Chief Executive of the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), went some way towards recognising this when she noted that teachers were being undermined by a three-course diet of criticism, criticism and criticism (Guardian Higher, 30 March 1999). In spite of this 'gypsy warning' from its Chief Executive, the TTA is still regarded by many in ITE as a significant contributor to the voices of criticism (Hextall & Mahony, 1998).

Furthermore, the stance adopted by the TTA and supported both by the New Right and New Labour on the nature of education generally and teacher education in particular is essentially reductionist. It confuses learning outcomes with education both in schools, where pupils are set narrowly defined targets, and ITT where trainees are expected to meet specific and limited standards. This stance conceptualises teaching as a set of mechanistic practices which can be used by teacher technicians, once they have attained the required standard of proficiency through a training apprenticeship, to train malleable pupils who, in turn, must reach targets set for them by the Government (Angus, 1993). The standards detailed in Circular 4/9, and the TTA's implementation of them, represent an over-reliance on chalk-face practice and technical rationality and fails to recognise that, although there are craft skills involved in teaching, a successful teacher does far more than deploy such skills. Teaching is not a technical or instrumental activity. It consists of a series of negotiations between teachers and taught in a context which is complex and often unpredictable. Craft skills are necessary for good teaching but they are not, in themselves, sufficient. They must be supported by knowledge and theoretical understandings and a capacity to use those understandings to inform, reflect upon and enhance practice. Universities represent an approach to teacher education based on critical enquiry which enables such understandings to be developed while, at the same time, enabling new teachers to recognise the extent to which any single approach is restrictive and limited. Knowledge and understanding enable teachers to be more intelligent and more flexible and help them to see more opportunities. Such an approach to teacher education, however, is not part of the New Labour agenda for ITT. This is far more mechanistic and instrumental and is, as Hodkinson (1977) has pointed out, entirely consistent with policies in a post-Fordist state.

New Labour education policy has, at its centre, the post-Fordist justification of providing a better skilled work force for British industry. Teacher training has its part to play in this. Consequently, teacher training is increasingly informed by a technical rationality based on a preoccupation with means and outputs rather than with purpose. Quality and efficiency are the dominant modes of discourse. Thus, to focus all teacher training on the improvement of classroom teaching and pupil learning with the intention of achieving specific and limited educational outcomes is to move towards post-Fordist teacher training which perpetuates the myth that teaching is a mechanistic process. This is reinforced by the frequency and nature of OFSTED inspections. These are intended to inspect quality in ITT by concentrating on making judgements about the quality of training by measuring outcomes against predetermined criteria. No attempt is made to identify development opportunities or to provide support. Teacher trainers and their trainees are regarded as artisans to be controlled rather than professionals to be empowered (Hodkinson, 1997). Good students are defined as those who are able to work uncritically within a policy context which requires them to strive to achieve targets determined by government policy. This is the true nature of post-Fordist teacher training from which any pretence at education and personal professional development has been removed.

To some extent, the struggle for teacher education rather than teacher training was lost almost before it began. Lawn (1987) has argued that teacher trainers have always been functionaries of the state and were so even before the state could make a similar claim on teachers themselves. This was initially a product of the political control exerted over teacher recruitment and supply which tied teacher education closely to the policy making and implementation processes implicitly, if not explicitly, and which had a significant influence on teacher education provision. It has, more recently, taken the form of government interventions in the teacher training curriculum which have established a formal link between delivery and funding and between teacher training and government education policy. The fragmentation and intellectual limitations of the teacher training college tradition were, to a large extent, responsible for creating a situation in which the transition from government influence to intervention could be achieved. The failure of university departments of education successfully to establish links between themselves and the colleges meant that such limitations continued even after colleges of education started to offer degree programs, mainly through the auspices of the CNAA. University departments themselves, however, also suffered in comparison with departments based on more established subjects and responded by further distancing themselves from the colleges (Gardner & Cunningham, 1998). This served to separate the college tradition based on vocational practice from that of the more intellectual and academic tradition of the university departments of education. Thus the opportunity to forge a potentially powerful alliance between the two types of providers was missed. At the point of transition from the social democratic to the resource constrained phase, the situation could be described thus:

   University Departments of Education against college, municipal against
   voluntary, and small and isolated against large and integrated ... But most
   importantly ... the voice most commonly heard ... is ... that of principals
   and professors actively promoting the cause of their sectors. (Gardner &
   Cunningham, 1998, p. 246)

The distinction between colleges and university departments remains to this day, embodied in two national organisations which represent the different types of providers. This legacy of division within teacher education based on perceived inequalities and different traditions, reinforced by amalgamations in the 1970s and 1980s, has seriously inhibited the .capacity of teacher educators to mount an effective challenge to interventionist governments or to develop a coherent and persuasive alternative to the prescriptive and narrow approach to teacher training that is embodied in New Labour education policy.

Keywords

educational policy
preservice teacher education
schools of education
teacher education
training policy
university teaching

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Les Bell University of Leicester 

Les Bell is Professor of Educational Management, Educational Management Development Unit, School of Education, University of Leicester.