Requiring Authenticity: ITE Partnership Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In 2019, the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand released a new set of requirements for the approval and accreditation of initial teacher education (ITE) programs in Aotearoa New Zealand (TCNZ, 2019). All ITE programs in Aotearoa New Zealand must be approved under these new requirements by 1 January 2022. This chapter considers a central tenet of the new requirements, that “program design and delivery must be based on authentic consultation and partnership with relevant key partners” (TCNZ, 2019, p. 10). The idea that ‘authentic partnership’ can be a requirement of ITE is explored using positioning theory (Davies & Harre, 1990; Harre et al., 2009), to understand the construction of ‘authentic partnership’ as necessary for quality ITE and what its early impacts on practice are. First, positioning theory is explained briefly, in the context of understanding institutional actors in the public arena rather than individuals. Then, the key analytical tools of positioning theory are used to understand the shifts in positioning embedded in the TCNZ Requirements (TCNZ, 2019). To understand how new positioning of providers and the teaching profession came to be central to the TCNZ Requirements, and thus to the work of teacher education providers, an analysis of key documents and events leading up to the publication of the new requirements is presented. This analysis also uses positioning theory, particularly to identify the emerging story lines that put authentic partnerships in the centre of ITE reform. The analysis is centred on teacher preparation for English medium schools. In Aotearoa New Zealand, initial teacher education (ITE) is regulated and accredited by a national body called the Teaching Council. The Council is separate from Government and is responsible for providing leadership to the teaching profession and enhancing the status of teaching as well as registering, certificating and disciplining teachers and setting teaching standards. In ITE, the Teaching Council sets the requirements that programs must meet, accredits programs through a panel-led approval process and monitors programs regularly. The Teaching Council is governed by a board of seven representatives elected by different sectors of the profession, including one from ITE providers, and six people appointed by the Minister of Education. In 2019, after a lengthy process of development and consultation, the Teaching Council released new ITE requirements. This chapter considers where the ideas in these requirements came from and what their impacts are for partnership in ITE in Aotearoa New Zealand.