In the Public Interest: The Challenge for Initial Teacher Education: A Critical Response to Les Bell

Abstract

Les Bell makes an important contribution to scholarship on initial teacher education with his chronicle of developments in England from 1960 to 1999. He identifies four phases of policy, the first three of which span periods of roughly a decade or more as governments of different persuasion took an increasingly interventionist role, first Conservative under Prime Ministers Macmillan and Douglas-Home, then Labour under Wilson, Conservative under Heath, Labour under Wilson and Callaghan, and finally Conservative under Thatcher and Major. These phases are labelled Social Democratic (1960-1973), Resource Constrained (1973-1987) and Market (1988-1996). The fourth phase, labelled Excellence, commenced in 1997 with the election of New Labour under Blair. Bell leaves the reader in no doubt as to the integrating theme over these four decades, and to his view that New Labour in no way provides a circuit-breaker. In respect to an integrating theme: The story of initial teacher education in England between 1960 and 1999 is one of 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. (p. 200) In respect to the legacy of previous governments and prospects under New Labour, Bell refers to the distinctions between colleges and university departments that remain from earlier times and concludes: 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 the interventionist governments or develop a coherent and persuasive alternative to the prescriptive and narrow approach to teacher training that is embodied in New Labour education policy. (p. 202) These prospects are daunting, given the political context in England. With the usual caveat on there being no certainties in politics, the size of its majority in parliament and trends in public opinion polls suggest that a second term is assured for New Labour, with a third a reasonable prospect at this point, bringing the country to 2012, by which time there is even greater certainty that the nature of education in general, and schooling in particular, will have changed profoundly. The time frame for Bell's analysis thus spans more than half a century for what is apparently an increasingly embattled profession and a powerless faculty in higher education. The purpose of this response to Bell's analysis is to canvas the possibility that a different strategic analysis and a new approach will yield a different outcome and a more uplifting scenario for the profession and those who play a part in initial teacher education. Critical issues related to `public interest' and `professional' are examined. The Australian experience The starting point is acknowledgement of the resonances with experience in Australia, whether it be the rough alignment of phases in policy in the field of initial teacher education, or the divisions and amalgamations in higher education and their effects in faculties of education, or concerns about the apparent decline in status of teachers, or the tight connection being made by policy makers between outcomes of schooling and the economic needs of the nation in a global economy, or the emergence of a reductionist approach in the specification of standards. There are some important points of difference. While experience in school reform in England and most states in Australia is similar, there has not been the same tight connection to reform in teacher education. While there are similarities in national or state curriculum standards and frameworks, and high levels of decentralisation of authority and responsibility to schools through local management (England) or self-management (Australia), there are differences in regimes of accountability for schools and systems of public education. …