Back to the Future: The De-professionalisation of Initial Teacher Education in England and Wales

Abstract

In many ways this paper reads like a report from an educational battlefield. From the 1980s those involved with initial teacher education in England and Wales can be seen as dealing with sporadic sniping at their work, followed by more substantial skirmishes, culminating in the 1990s with fUll-blooded assaults. This paper begins by describing the position being attacked, identifies the first intimations of aggression, then focuses upon the battering inflicted, in the 1990s upon initial teacher education. The analysis which follows indicates that, savage though it has been, the attack on initial teacher education is in some ways only a feint to disguise an indirect assault on the concept of teacher professionalism and thus on education per se.