It seems unlikely that extreme deregulation will prevail even in England, par-
ticularly as current Ministers move on. Nevertheless, the chances of initial teacher
education being maintained in all current higher education institutions are remote.
Some will leave the scene as result of judgements about their quality or the impact
of competition. It is also likely that some research-intensive universities will decide
that the new arrangements for university involvement in teacher training will prove
just too onerous to justify remaining in that area of work.
A few years ago, in January 2013, I predicted that, as a result of the develop-
ments discussed here, some English higher education institutions would abandon
teacher education, some would embrace School Direct with enthusiasm, private‘for
profit’providers as well as branded Academy chains would enter thefield and
compete nationally, some key‘full service’Education departments would remain in
universities and new institutional, regional, national and international partnerships
would develop. Most of these things have since happened, including the entry of
Hibernia College Dublin into the online teacher training market in England, albeit
with limited success, and interest in teacher education being shown by large global
companies like Pearson plc.
David Bell, former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education under
Michael Gove, has offered his own reflections on the English education reforms of
recent decades. He believes that England is probably moving towards a‘system of
many small systems’in education:
‘Messiness’in terms of structures will be a natural by-product of radical structural reform as
we move from a standardised national system to a system of many small systems. I don’t
have a single, solution to offer, nor do I necessarily think there should be one, as the
end-point of these school reforms hasn’t been reached yet.
(Bell 2012 ,p.6)He was thinking here of small systems of schools, such as Academy Chains and
school federations, which might take on some of the functions of local authorities
and might also choose to take a major role in teacher preparation, with or without
substantial university involvement, as befits local circumstances. Interestingly,
Bell’s use of the term‘messiness’resonates with Stephen Ball’s characterisation of
post-modern education systems as‘untidy’(Ball 2011 ).
25.6 Global Trends
Although the new model being pioneered in England is unlikely to become the
norm, the conventional wisdom is no longer sacrosanct. The alternative narrative
that teachers learn best on the job will have significant implications for the many
countries in the world where the orthodox trajectory is still a distant dream. Even
some well down that path have begun to consider alternatives. For example, Hong
Kong has recently retreated from the ‘all trained, all graduate’ policy that it
introduced in 1997.
380 G. Whitty