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This article continues the analyses of the impact of an innovative teacher education programme aimed at school improvement in a developing country context (A. Khamis, P. Sammons, 2004. The development of a cadre of teacher educators: some lessons from Pakistan. International Journal of Educational Development, 24(3), 255-268). Building on recent publications that have analysed outcomes of the teacher education programme and how the cadre of teacher educators has worked to initiate improvement in schools in Pakistan. The article considers the "teacher education for school improvement model" based on findings from the case studies of nine co-operating school. Lessons are presented to further inform the development of teacher education programmes and the measurement of effectiveness of such programmes in developing country contexts. The article further considers relevant international research on educational change and reform to draw further lessons. These lessons include the need to pay greater attention to the cultural contexts and milieu in Pakistan, and the need to create models of school improvement and teacher education that originate within developing country contexts rather than the adaptation of European/North American models that are based on sources of data in those contexts. The article concludes by arguing for the need to develop better theoretical understandings from the current innovations underway and placing the onus on intervening agencies to better inform educational change strategies promoted in developing country contexts.

This article is based on an educational innovation, the creation of a cadre of teacher educators, in the developing world. Professional development teachers (PDT) were trained in an in-service two-year teacher education programme leading to a Masters of Education (M.Ed.) degree. The PDTs were expected to play three roles in their home schools upon completion of the degree programme: (a) exemplary teachers; (b) teacher educators; and (c) change agents within their home schools to effect improvement. This article reviews education in Pakistan and the innovations that have come to inform the need to focus on teacher education as a primary area of investment and presents findings of a three-year longitudinal study of a selection of PDTs trained at the Aga Khan University's Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED). The main findings of the study indicate that teachers benefited significantly as individuals with enhanced career prospects, identified themselves more and preferred the role of teacher educators as opposed to classroom-based teachers, and sought opportunities outside their own schools but their role as change agents was more limited. Those teachers who maintained links with their schools beyond the three-year bonding period (a condition of being admitted to study for the M.Ed.) varied in the extent to which they managed to initiate and sustain school improvement efforts as indicated by changes in the structures and relationships within schools affecting the teaching-learning offered to pupils.