Teacher education for rural–regional sustainability: changing agendas, challenging futures, chasing chimeras?

Abstract

Rural schooling has remained a concern for policy‐makers, employers, teacher education providers and schools throughout our recent history. In particular, the allegedly variable quality of teaching and learning in rural Australia is a major concern for teacher educators and educational leaders alike, with the provision of quality services for rural Australians a major equity issue in social as well as political terms. Working from an explicitly situated perspective, this paper explores these issues in relation to a set of current and recent research projects and government reports, with particular reference to a study currently exploring the articulation of teacher education and rural schooling in New South Wales. This is contextualized within a larger agenda of national and environmental sustainability which raises the key issue of social policy and educational priorities as we look forward into a radically uncertain future for teacher education, rural schooling and rural‐regional sustainability.

Notes

* Corresponding author: School of Teacher Education, Allen House, Charles Sturt University, Panorama Avenue, Bathurst, New South Wales 2795, Australia. Email: [email protected]

As well as R(T)EP, the project discussed at some length later in this paper, we are referring here to a set of current or recently completed ARC projects on, respectively, curriculum history and Australian education (2001–2003), Indigenous teachers (2004–2006), and literacy and the environment (2004–2006).

Back in 1901, for instance, the teachers in one mainland Australian state were described as the ‘least educated in the English‐speaking world’ (Turner, 1961; Saunders, 1976; Hyams, 1976).

www.csu.edu.au/student/rural/home.html

It should be said at this point that Smith has his own views on what follows from such a critique—in essence, a principled deregulation of teacher education, and its radical reformulation along expressly ‘postmodern’, marketized lines. We draw somewhat differently on his analysis for the purposes of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bill Green *

* Corresponding author: School of Teacher Education, Allen House, Charles Sturt University, Panorama Avenue, Bathurst, New South Wales 2795, Australia. Email: [email protected]