Policy rhetorics and resource neutral reforms in higher education: their impact and implications?

Abstract

As higher education (HE) comes under increasing pressure from policy-makers, nationally and internationally, to contribute more directly to economic development, tensions between more traditional missions of universities and their more recent entrepreneurial makeovers create major dilemmas for academic staff regarding their roles and responsibilities. Using the lens of professional responsibility and accountability, the paper takes Initial Teacher Education as an instrumental case study to illustrate how these tensions, in terms of policy documents, and perceptions of teacher educators unfold. Analysis strongly suggest that when external prescription is increased, and reforms under-resourced, pressures for accountable conformist compliance render the exercise of professional responsibility extremely difficult if not impossible, compromised rather than finding ‘legitimate compromise’. The paper argues that HE has significant lessons to learn from this case while signalling that current challenges within teacher education are already becoming a gauntlet that the entire HE community needs to consider seriously.