Move over Nelly: lessons from 30 years of employment-based initial teacher education in England

ABSTRACT

Recruiting, preparing and retaining high-quality teachers are recurrent themes of local, national and international education agendas. Traditional university-led forms of teacher education continue to be challenged, and defended, as nations strive to secure a teaching force equipped to achieve high-quality learning outcomes for all students. One commonly adopted policy solution has been the diversification of teacher preparation routes: the alternative certification agenda. In this article, we examine the entire history of one alternative route in place in England from 1997 to 2012, the Graduate Teacher Programme. Using one example of an employment-based programme, we argue that opportunities to engineer innovative and creative spaces in the face of the current teacher preparation reform agenda need to be seized. This case study, which is contextualised in both the international debates about alternative teacher certification routes and the current policy agenda in England, demonstrates the extent to which successive administrations have failed to learn from the lessons of the past in the rush to recycle policies and claim them as their own.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher preparation
• teacher education policy
• alternative certification
• employment-based teacher preparation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For the purposes of this discussion, the term SCITT refers to the programme from 1993–2011.

2. The then government agency with responsibility for recruitment and standards in teaching.

3. The national education inspection body.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bernadette Youens

Bernadette Youens is a professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her main area of research interest is initial teacher education, with particular emphasis the impact of different routes into teaching on long-term professional development.

Lindsey Smethem

Lindsey Smethem is an associate professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her research interests revolve around teachers' work and lives and include recruitment and retention of teachers; initial teacher education; induction of newly qualified teachers; mentoring beginning teachers; professional development of teachers; building resilience in beginning teachers; routes into teaching and modern languages education.

Mark Simmons

Mark Simmons is an assistant professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. His research interests include initial teacher education and mathematics education.