The 'Reform' of Teacher Education in England

Abstract

Teacher education is increasingly being questioned. In England, politicians and others have misinterpreted statistics on teacher performance to imply that initial teacher training is at fault. In spite of evidence and argument, moves to place training either entirely or mostly in schools are well advanced. Funding for training is bound to follow this re-distribution of professional input and the whole area of educational studies (in England at least) has become problematic, as funds are taken out of education departments of universities and given directly to schools. The only way forward is to identify the essential elements of curriculum subjects- in our case music - and stress the unique and necessary elements of teacher education that cannot be generalised to the school setting.

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