Reforming further education teacher training: a policy communities and policy networks analysis

Abstract

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s teacher preparation for the schools sector in the United Kingdom was subject to a series of reforms and innovations including the establishment of new institutional arrangements to oversee the sector, namely the Teacher Training Agency (TTA – now the Training and Development Agency, TDA). Since 2002 the arrangements for training teachers in the broadly defined learning and skills sector have also been subject to scrutiny and a wide‐ranging reform agenda has been put forward by the Government. This paper examines the key reforms using a three stage model to analyse the policy development process and discusses the functions and status of the sector skills council, Learning UK (LLUK), in order to examine its relationships with external stakeholders. Contrasts are made with the approach adopted by the TTA during the reform of teacher training for school. The paper concludes with a tentative assessment of the progress of the reform agenda and the identification of a number of salient issues that warrant further research.