The Complex Policy Landscape of Initial Teacher Education in England: What’s the Problem Represented to Be?

TLDR: In this article, a critical examination of the recent policy trajectory within initial teacher education in England, interrogating policies designed to bring more recruits into the profession by following a market ideology: increasing the choice of available pathways while treating teacher preparation as on-the-job training for work in a specific setting.

Abstract: Teacher education policy and practice in England differs from that of many other countries, even compared to other jurisdictions within the United Kingdom and, it has been suggested, is something of an outlier. Increasing government intervention in teacher education has led to a somewhat complex and, many might argue, confused policy landscape. Current teacher education policy and practice in England is framed by major policy reforms begun in 2010 and informed by the government’s White Paper The Importance of Teaching. These reforms were ostensibly about improving the quality of teacher education in England but the emphasis was on market-driven approaches. The government has introduced the Early Career Framework—a prescribed curriculum for all recently qualified teachers in their first two years of teaching, with full implementation from September 2021—and a revised Core Content Framework, with implementation from September 2020. This chapter presents a critical examination of the recent policy trajectory within initial teacher education in England, interrogating policies designed to bring more recruits into the profession by following a market ideology: increasing the choice of available pathways while treating teacher preparation as on-the-job training for work in a specific setting. We investigate the espoused dual imperatives of quality and quantity in teacher education and the resulting policies and practices as postulated ‘solutions’ in order to tease out their implicit problem representations and the implications that they entail.