Chronicles of Wasted Time? Initial Teacher Education in England: 1960–1999

Abstract

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. …