Abstract
Teacher education as conventionally provided by universities has come under increasing political and public scrutiny. As a result, around the world, regulatory changes, together with other pressures, have generated a flurry of new initiatives, partnerships, and providers. Although their provenance has varied, reforms in teacher education are typically based on questions about who should be recruited into teaching, what should be its knowledge base, what should be the respective roles of research and professional experience, what conditions teachers should be prepared for, where teacher education should be based, and what partners should be involved in its leadership and delivery. In this chapter, I outline two recently conceptualised teacher education programs and interrogate how far they go in providing ‘solutions’ to key ‘problems’ identified in and with teacher education. I consider the extent to which it is possible to create forms of teacher education that are professionally defensible from a higher education perspective while responding to public and political concerns.
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Notes
- 1.
For all domestic students, total EFTSL in “Teacher Education” in 2014 was 52,536 (36,573 was at undergraduate level). Total EFTSL for all domestic students across all disciplines in 2014 was 719,363 – 7.3 % (Australian Government Department of Education and Training, 2015a).
- 2.
SVA is a non-profit organisation that describes itself as “leading practitioners of venture philanthropy in Australia” (Social Ventures Australia, 2015).
- 3.
ICSEA is the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage created by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which enables meaningful comparisons of NAPLAN test achievement by students in schools across Australia. See http://www.myschool.edu.au/AboutUs/Glossary/glossaryLink for more details
- 4.
The redesign of the existing Master of Teaching program at Newcastle took place in 2013 and 2014, with the first cohort enrolling in the revised program in 2015.
- 5.
The model focuses on intellectual quality, a quality learning environment, and significance.
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Gore, J.M. (2016). Reform and the Reconceptualisation of Teacher Education in Australia. In: Brandenburg, R., McDonough, S., Burke, J., White, S. (eds) Teacher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0785-9_2
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