Abstract
This paper reviews significant events of the last 25 years in schools and teacher education in England and looks ahead to the next 25 years. Various scenarios for the future are examined and the potential is considered for new forms of teachers' initial education and continuing professional development using information and communications technology. It is concluded that the current centrally‐controlled national system is increasingly inappropriate to present needs and will fracture under the combination of pressures of a commodified education market, learners' consumerist expectations of personalised provision, and networks of informal learning enabled by widespread access to portable communications technology. Four lessons from this future prediction are drawn, with recommendations for radical changes in government policy and orientation.
Highlights
INTRODUCTIONThe extensive peer-to-peer communication made possible by the technology could result in significant informal learning and the greater empowerment of individual learners
This paper begins with a brief review of the rise of central control over schools and teacher education in England
A narrow managerialist focus on compliance to performance indicators and the formularisation of pedagogy are resulting in a redefining of the professional status of teachers and teacher education, and this is happening at a time when the anticipated needs for the citizens of an Information Society will be flexibility, creativity and originality
Summary
The extensive peer-to-peer communication made possible by the technology could result in significant informal learning and the greater empowerment of individual learners How these developments might affect initial teacher education and teachers’ continuing professional development (to be referred to as ITE/CPD) is examined, and it is argued that the near future could see rapid decline in the role of university departments of education (UDEs) as course providers, with school cluster partnerships employing apprenticeship models of training for the vast majority of new teachers. Bates argues for a wider social and cultural interpretation of the purpose of schooling, with the implication that teachers and ITE/CPD professionals must engage in a ‘broad conversation’ on the balance between the personal, social and economic functions of education. A judgement on the second criterion can best be made after consideration of the needs and purpose of schooling in the future
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