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This paper will focus on the shifts in discourses about teacher education and teacher voice within the South African research and policy environment over the last four decades. The alignment of the political and educational agenda in providing resistance to the apartheid system culminated in 1994, the start of the new democracy. The preceding 20 years (1974–1994) were characterised by defiance of the subjugation of teachers’ voices, and the need to find agency amongst teachers. The shifting agenda of the strong teacher union movement during these resistance years and within the post-apartheid 20 years (1994–2014) is the subject of this paper. The attempt to generate a focus on teacher professional quality agendas is presently becoming increasingly challenging. Has the teacher agency agenda produced a disregard for teacher professional development? Are teachers protective of their own inadequacies to enact the transformation for which they campaigned? Are the new educational authorities reverting to yet another form of earlier accountability and performativity regimes to regulate teachers? The paper traces a critical account of these shifting historical trends in activating teacher voice. It argues for ‘deliberative action’ to reassert teacher voice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This narrative paper investigates a number of enduring and emerging themes reflecting teacher education in Canada over the past 40 years, including changes in information and communication technology, bridging gaps in theory and practice, English as a second language, French immersion and multicultural teacher development. Canadian teacher education programmes have become famous for their long-standing commitment to public education and social welfare. This paper examines the way in which over the past four decades such a commitment has led to effective leadership, multiculturalism, racial tolerance and global citizenship education, as well as comprehensive curriculum, teaching and learning, all figure prominently in Canadian teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reviews the long attempt to transform teacher education in Thailand. Although a brief summary of educational systems and models of teacher preparation from 1892 to 1973 has been provided, the prime focus of the paper is on presenting changes in teacher education from 1974 to the present day, against the backdrop of key political and social forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last 40 years, teacher education in England has been the focus of a stream of ‘reforms’ with the ultimate aim of placing provision into schools, the justification for such a radical policy being that higher education is alleged to be failing to provide good quality teachers thereby compromising the social and economic development of the country. The process whereby these reforms have been introduced is described and then used as a way of comparing and contrasting the way in which similar reforms can be identified in the international teacher education communities represented in this special issue of theJournal of Education for Teaching(JET). The paper closes by identifying lessons that can be learned from international comparators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper traces the key periods, players and events which have contributed to the shaping of the current landscape of teacher education in Scotland. Starting with the Wheatley Report and the formation of the General Teaching Council (Scotland) in the 1960s through to the most recent Donaldson Review of Teacher Education, we examine ebb and flow amongst GTCS, government, colleges of education and universities. Following its own trajectory, Scottish Education resisted and rejected policies emanating from an ‘English’ ideology, capitalised on respect for and influence of the GTCS, and successfully moved teacher education’s base from autonomous colleges to high-status universities. At the core of teacher education in Scotland is the continuing desire for partnership-working amongst key stakeholders: local and national government, GTCS, schools, teacher education institutions, teaching unions, parents and pupils. A teaching profession of trained graduates, underpinned by university-led subject study, is now moving steadily towards Masters-level professional learning for all. Although having faced some troubled episodes, this period has also been characterised by remarkable stability and consensus and, although still tackling the improvement agenda suggested by the recent Donaldson review, teacher education in Scotland has retained a high degree of public and political trust. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New Zealand teacher education has been profoundly affected by major social and economic changes since 1974. From a separate sector controlled by the Department of Education, it has moved through deregulation to largely university provision with research imperatives for staff. Programme scope has broadened to embrace early childhood and the continuing education of teachers. Current concerns are the impact of performativity, funding challenges and external compliance. New directions have often been a response to issues of supply or political ideology rather than considered policy. The way forward is uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the relationship between pre-service teacher education (ITE) for primary schooling and primary teaching in England between 1974 and 2014, and explores the ‘fitness of purpose’ of the current system of preparing teachers for the classrooms of the twenty-first century. Our historical analysis suggests that, despite 40 years of change in ITE, there are still a number of unresolved issues in ITE. These include: how to prepare for the multisubject, class teacher role which the majority of primary teachers still undertake; how to equip future teachers to deal with the social and emotional aspects of primary teaching; how to ensure that they are creative and flexible practitioners, able to cope with the demands of future curricula, pedagogical changes and the new roles and responsibilities which will inevitably occur during the course of their teaching careers in the next decades of this century; and how to structure ITE to provide adequate long-term foundations for the necessary professional development as a teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Chinese Government has conducted a series of top-down reforms of teacher education over the past several decades. The reforms have established a relatively stable teacher education system, regulated teacher education programmes and curricula, and provided opportunities for in-service teachers to be trained and to upgrade their educational credentials. Teacher education institutions have been upgraded, merged and made comprehensive, and they have initiated some innovative approaches. However, the teacher education process has not changed considerably, and most problems have not been solved. These problems have influenced the quality of teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]