supervisors and student teachers, where the prospective teacher is positioned as the
sole learner, guided by the teacher as expert (Bloomfield 2009 ).
This chapter reports on work undertaken in two New Zealand universities whose
goal was to re-conceptualise and reinvigorate university-school partnerships. The
two case studies contribute specifically to an understanding of how genuinely
collaborative school-university partnerships can establish shared goals and pro-
cesses to support the professional learning of student teachers. The authors argue
that such partnerships can help to address the disconnect between school and
university, and between theory and practice, that is a feature of much of the criti-
cism of university-based ITE.
15.2 Background and Context
Currently, over 90% of primary and secondary teachers graduate from one of the
seven main New Zealand universities. The traditional route into teaching is either
through an undergraduate teacher education degree or, for those holding an existing
degree, through a one-year Graduate Diploma in Teaching.
New Zealand policy makers, in common with other countries, have identified
ITE as being key to the quest to improve the educational outcomes for diverse
students by improving teacher quality. For example, in 2009 the Minister of
Education established the Workforce Advisory Group to advise her on ways of
improving the quality of ITE in order to raise the overall quality of teaching across
the school system. In their subsequent report,A Vision for the Teaching Profession
(Ministry of Education 2010 ), the advisory group recommended substantial chan-
ges be made to ITE, including requiring a postgraduate qualification to enter
teaching and the need to significantly strengthen university-school practicum
relationships.
These ideas resurfaced in 2013, with the New Zealand Ministry of Education’s
competitive tendering process for‘exemplary postgraduate initial teacher education
(EPITE) programmes’that were more‘practice focused’and grounded in rich
partnerships with schools (Ministry of Education 2013 ). Selected programmes
received additional funding of approximately NZ $6000 per student teacher. The
programmes are being trialled over an initial 3-year period and are intended to lift
the quality of graduating teachers practice and contribute to raising student
achievement, particularly that of priority student groups (Maori and Pasifika
learners, those from low socio-economic backgrounds, and students with special
education needs). Three universities were selected to implement‘exemplary pro-
grammes’in 2014.
This chapter reports work undertaken in two universities with the goal of
re-conceptualising and reinvigorating university-school partnerships by intention-
ally bringing school and university communities together to establish shared goals
and processes to support student teacher learning. The following sections outline
two case studies of masters’ITE programmes from universities from different parts
15 Redesigning Authentic Collaborative... 225