repeat prescription: the national curriculum for initial teacher training

REPEAT PRESCRIPTION: THE NATIONALCURRICULUM FOR INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING

by DAVID HARTLEY, Institute for Education and Lifelong Learning,University of Dundee

ABSTRACT: This article examines some of the similarities in the legit-imation and structure of two national curricula in England: that forschools in the ’80s; and that for initial teacher training in the ’90s. Theemphasis is on the latter, with reference to the former where relevant.

Keywords: national curriculum, initial teacher education and training

1. INTRODUCTION

By February 1997, the former Conservative government had takenfurther its attempt to lay to rest the signs and sources of child-centred education, which it regarded as little more than an aberra-tion, a crack in the pedagogical code. The legislated NationalCurriculum in England and Wales (and to a lesser extent the non-legislated national curriculum guidelines in Scotland) has overrecent years sought to suppress the signs of progressive pedagogy inthe schools. Throughout the 1980s, the Conservative governmentappeared to conclude that the source of this aberration was theteacher educators in the colleges and universities. By 1996, theTeacher Training Agency (TTA) and the Office for Standards inEducation (OFSTED) had published plans for a national frameworkfor the assessment of teacher training: ‘The Framework sets out inmore detail the basis on which judgements about compliance andquality will be made’ (OFSTED/TTA, 1996; 1–2). But there wasmore to come. Subsequent to the national framework for assessmentcame the new national curriculum for initial teacher training (ITT),which started in September 1997, with detailed content for theteaching of English and mathematics in primary schools (DfEE,1997a).

There are similarities in the reasons which the former

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Conservative government had set out in order to justify its interven-tion in the curriculum and assessment of the schools in the mid-1980s, and in the curriculum and assessment of the ‘providers’ ofteacher training in the 1990s. The government was not unaware ofthis correspondence. For example, the TTA’s Annual Report for1995–96 states: ‘It is too early to speculate on the detail of all aspectsof the national curriculum. But it will take into account all that hasbeen learned over the last decade about the best way of developinga national curriculum’ (TTA, 1996a: 6–7). Similarly, Cheryl Gillan,the former Conservative education minister, declared in her addressto the Professional Association of Teachers in Cheltenham on 29July 1996:

So far, I have focused on the framework within which schoolsoperate, and the steps we have taken to establish a frameworkwhich will support high quality and diversity.I should like to end by looking at another framework – the profes-sional framework within which teachers operate. There are manyparallels (DfEE, 1996b).

These parallels are now considered under the following themes.First, I shall suggest that there are some similarities in the ways inwhich both national curricula were justified to the profession and tothe public; second, a further parallel was the government’s appealto a presumed certainty about what children should know and about‘what works’ for teachers; third, there are some points of corre-spondence in the structures which framed these reforms – that is tosay, both reforms can be seen in relation to the ‘new managerialism’(Zifcak, 1994) in the welfare state. In considering these themes, themain substantive emphasis will be on the reform of initial teachertraining, with appropriate references to the earlier reforms ofcurriculum and assessment.

2. JUSTIFYING THE REFORMS: CRISIS AND URGENCY

Since the 1960s, education has been subjected to critical analysis bythe Left and the Right. Of the two, the latter held sway; it hadgovernment support. In the aftermath of prime ministerCallaghan’s Ruskin College speech the criticism had centred on apresumed decline in morals and attainment. Child-centred peda-gogy had earlier been advocated in the Plowden Report, but theConservative government regarded it as unsound. It was said to havelured school teachers off their true course, taking them on a detourof pedagogical deviation, causing primary education in particular to

INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING

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have lost its way. The National Curriculum and OFSTED were tooffer a course correction, back to good teaching. Echoing America’sNation at Risk discourse in The National Curriculum 5–16: A consulta-tion document (DES, 1987), the Department for Education andScience did not mince its words: ‘We must raise standards consis-tently, and at least as quickly as they are rising in competitor coun-tries’ (para. 6; emphasis added).

Meanwhile, within teacher education, constructivist pedagogy wasapplied by academics to those very trainee teachers who mightthemselves come to apply it later in the school, albeit within theconfines of the National Curriculum. So, if in the ’60s and ’70s thebasics had gone by the board in the primary school, then in the ’80sthe foundation disciplines in the faculties of education went thesame way, leaving a curious mix: a curriculum of competence and apedagogy of constructivism. Grand theory was being replaced byniche narratives, situated cognitions and by what Alexander (1984)calls ‘practical theorising’. Here, as Wilson (1989) saw it, was the de-intellectualisation of teacher education. But this was not justWilson’s concern. Government itself asserted that there was toolittle substance to these courses, and that there were too few peda-gogical skills being taught.

Nearly ten years after the National Curriculum was launched, MrsShephard, the former Secretary of State for Education andEmployment, was to stress the need for momentum and haste in herplans for the reform of initial teacher training. In a press notice(DfEE, 1996c) she stated, ‘I make no apology for the speed at whichI am taking this forward. The need for improvement is urgent.’ This‘momentum’ had been set in train first by the Committee for theAccreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) in the 1980s, and there-after by a directive issued by the government in 1992 wherebystudents had to spend much more time in schools.

Notwithstanding its dirigisme and sense of urgency, theConservative government claimed that its legislation had beenpreceded by consultation exercises. What has annoyed profession-als, however, is that for the most part their responses have tendednot to alter significantly the original proposals. Of consultation,there was much; of negotiation, very little. Take the consultationpreceding the National Curriculum. Barber, in his analysis of thepolicy process surrounding the National Curriculum, notes that:

Baker (the Secretary of State) had no intention of seriouslyconsulting, as his own account of events reveals. [. . .] He was aman in a hurry, and had no intention of waiting for the Bill to



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reach the statute book before he began the implementationphase (Barber, 1996, pp. 36 and 39; brackets in original).

The members of the partnership – local government, the teacherassociations and central government – have not had equal power.Power was weighted heavily in favour of the Conservative govern-ment, which was highly directive, and continued to be so, notwith-standing the emollient tones made later by Sir Ron Dearing (1994)to ease the bureaucratic pressures associated with the NationalCurriculum.

Consultation has also featured very prominently in the TTA’sprocedures prior to the introduction of a national curriculum forinitial teacher training. In this respect, Mahony and Hextall havereported on the level of knowledge which respondents had of the‘activities and operations of the TTA’ (Mahony and Hextall, 1997, p.2). Their survey included the higher education institutions involvedin initial teacher training, the LEAs, and some 170 schools, mainlysecondary. Although the TTA set much store by consultation, therewas little heed paid to negotiation: the agenda of the consultativeprocess was set by the TTA; the process whereby responses wereweighed and interpreted was unclear; and, ‘Even those who werebroadly favourable to the policy directions of the Agency expressedconcern about the procedures through which these were steered,legitimated and implemented’ (Mahony and Hextall, 1997, p. 13).For example, the TTA’s consultation paper, Revised Requirements forall Courses of Initial Teacher Training (Teacher Training Agency,1997a), published in February 1997, is barely changed in the finalversion (DfEE, 1997a, pp.42–46). (It remains to be seen if an exam-ination of the responses to the consultation paper warrants such aclose concordance between the consultation paper and the finalversion of the revised requirements.) Although the consultativeprocess which was associated with the introduction of the NationalCurriculum for pupils tended to be somewhat cursory, it neverthe-less derived from the policies of an elected government. The TTA’sconsultations, however, have been more thorough, and have beenintegral to its policy of legitimating the very changes which it seeksto make. But the TTA remains an unelected body. Members wereappointed by ministers, and key stakeholders were said to be withoutformal representation (Mahony and Hextall, 1997, p. 13).

3. CONTENT: THE BASICS OF TEACHER TRAINING

In the 1980s the government had intervened heavily in the once-secret garden of the curriculum, especially that for primary schools.



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The needs of the child were to give way to those of the nation, asdefined by the government.

The Government now wishes to [. . .] secure for all pupils in main-tained schools a curriculum which equips them with the knowl-edge, skills and understanding that they need for adult life andemployment (DES, 1987, para. 7)

By the mid-1990s, child-centred education should have been laid torest, but it seems that its demise has been slow. Her Majesty’s ChiefInspector has for a long time criticised child-centred teaching, andhas continued a train of thought which goes back to the Black Papers.In the same vein is Sheila Lawlor (1990, p. 8) who has regarded thepreparation of teachers as one to focus only on practical training.This echoes Keith Joseph who, in a speech on teacher training atDurham University in 1982, had referred to the ‘jargon-ridden theo-rizing’ in teacher education which served as ‘lamentable substitutesfor serious thought and training’ (Joseph, quoted in Wilkin, 1996, p.149). Wilkin herself has analysed the aftermath of this statement,showing that the public-sector providers thereafter became lessfocused on the foundation disciplines, giving greater emphasis toschool-based competence. The die had been cast:

But in general Circular 3/84 and the CATE criteria for trainingcourses deeply penetrated the training institutions at both struc-tural and substantive levels. The strategies and tactics used for thispurpose were multiple and comprehensive: compulsory inspec-tion, the loss of power and influence to the schools supported bythe shift from theory to practice in the course. And the mostpowerful incentive of all – the power to close any course whichfailed to meet the criteria (Wilkin, 1996, p. 52).

Other concerns about ‘theory’ came not from politicians. Pring(1994, p. 175), for example, has underlined the difficulties of estab-lishing a theory of pedagogy. Drawing on O’Connor (1957), he re-stated the demanding conditions which must be satisfied before theterm ‘theory’ is warranted. Mere description is not enough. Theorymust explain and make predictions, and it must be open to falsifi-cation. So far, pedagogical theory has not met these conditions. The‘theory’ debate continued (McIntyre, 1995). Even so, behaviourism,Piagetian developmentalism and the other schools of constructivismhave all failed to meet O’Connor’s conditions. The Piagetian under-pinnings of child-centred education have been shaken byFoucauldian-inspired analyses from the likes of Walkerdine (1994).The postmodernists have had a field day, calling into question the



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very notion of a universal self on which much psychology rests. So:if there is no unitary notion of the self, then there can be no scien-tific psychology which can rest on universalist claims (Gergen,1995). At best, local ‘theories’, provisional and contingent, mustsuffice (Hartley, 1993). But the Conservative government tired ofthe debate, and attempted to detach practice from theory. CherylGillan, speaking of the national curriculum for teachers which wasto come, declared:

The professional framework will not be a dry theoreticalconstruct. It will be firmly rooted in good classroom practice, andwill reflect and affect the way teachers routinely think and talkabout their work (DfEE, 1996b, item 56)

Notwithstanding CATE’s drive for criteria and for competence inthe 1980s, and not notwithstanding also the recent shift towardsschool-based training, all was not well. The chief executive of theTTA, Anthea Millett, stated in June 1996:

Two key reforms introduced in 1988 are beginning to work.Training based in schools and the introduction of criteria govern-ing courses, but too many of our ITT courses are still not practicalenough and are not providing a professional training. It is clear that thecriteria have only been successful up to point [sic] and so we need todevelop a NC for teacher training. It is only fair to every-one – teach-ers, students, teacher trainers – all need to know precisely what isexpected of them (TTA, 1996b; emphasis added).

Later, in September 1996, the former Secretary of State herselfissued a mixed message:

Over the last few years we have set about overhauling teachertraining to meet the needs of pupils. Schools have been put at theheart of initial training and play a major part in the trainingthrough providing far more school based experience. But despitethis it has become increasingly obvious to everyone that too manynewly qualified teachers, through no fault of their own, lack theteaching skills they need (DfEE, 1996c; emphasis added).

Although there is a tacit admission that progress had been made,there is also a could-do-better meaning conveyed in the message.This is the politics of faint praise. Recall the similar line taken withteachers in 1987:

Many LEAs and schools have made important advances towardsachieving a good curriculum for pupils aged 5–16, which offers



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progression, continuity and coherence between its differentstages (DES, 1987, para. 5).But progress has been variable, uncertain and often slow. Improvementshave been made, some standards of attainment have risen. Butsome improvement is not enough (DES, 1987, para. 6; emphasisadded).

Neither teacher educators now, nor primary school teachers then,were deemed to be worthy of self-regulation. Sheila Lawlor’s posi-tion was clear: university departments of education should bedisbanded, and their staff allocated to other subject departments ofthe university, or to schools (Lawlor, 1990, p. 38). Even if this istaken to be an unrepresentative position, there was nevertheless arecognition that things would change. Pring (1994, p. 188) pre-dicted that within a few years there might be left no more than thirtyuniversity departments of education. So far it has not happened, buthis prediction may yet come to pass if university departments ofeducation take the view that the TTA’s regulatory powers are tooexcessive to countenance. The paradox in much of this is that manyuniversity-based academics have been urging teachers to give ‘voice’to their own concerns, but they, the academics, have been less thanvociferous, though there have been some notable exceptions(Gilroy, 1992).

4. STRUCTURAL ISOMORPHISM: ‘KEY STAGES’ AND ‘KEY CAREER POINTS’IN A NATIONAL ‘FRAMEWORK’

Within the field of education, at the level of policy, it is possible tosee emergent isomorphic forms (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991) whichcombine central control over strategy and local devolution of thetactics to achieve them. They constitute a new mode of regulationwithin the welfare state, which is sometimes conceptualized as theNew Public Management (Ferlie et al., 1996), or the ‘new manageri-alism’ (Zifcak, 1994). In England and Wales, this central controlover the curriculum and assessment in schools was required in orderto facilitate a regulated market. The Conservative government’sintention was never to provide a choice of product, only of providers– of schools. The problem of how to get the measure of schools wassolved at a stroke by national testing and the league tables to whichit would give rise (DES, 1987, para. 9 (ii)).

Now a market for initial teacher training is also very likely(OFSTED/TTA, 1996, para. 1.3). Whilst the initial move towardscompetence-based and school-based training – such as that



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pioneered at the University of Oxford – was made for sound peda-gogical reasons, it appears to have been co-opted by the formerConservative government for political reasons. The trainingproviders have so far emphasised valid assessments of students. Thishas had the effect of minimising the reliability of assessment grades,thereby making it difficult for students (and providers) to becompared objectively. Given that the Conservative government’sthinking on education was framed within a market metaphor, thelack of comparable and objective indicators of institutional- (i.e.provider-) performance was not allowing a government-controlledmarket of providers to emerge. That is, would-be applicants fortraining programmes lacked reliable information on the ‘product’.The new national curriculum and assessment for initial training willremove this obstacle. Moreover, there is now a clear articulationpossible between the inspection of the national curriculum forinitial teacher training (by OFSTED) and the audit-cum-fundingallocations (by the TTA). Although the reliability of these assess-ments may still prove to be overly weak, the government can portraythem as reliable measures of institutional training in order to allo-cate students and funds.

In keeping with this emerging structural isomorphism, there is ashared discourse emerging. Consider, first, the emphasis given tothe term ‘key’:

[. . .] four keys points – new teacher, expect [sic] classroomteacher, subject leader and headteacher. These standards can bedeveloped as cornerstones of the new framework (DfEE, 199b,item 55).

These four key career-points correspond broadly to the key stages to beassessed nationally within the National Curriculum for pupils. Heretherefore is the discourse of development, of progression. A secondpoint of correspondence with the National Curriculum is the struc-ture for the assessment of pupils and of training providers. The newOFSTED/TTA (1996:10) framework contains an elaborate arrange-ment of areas: these are the central assessed area, namely ‘TeachingCompetence of Students and of NQTs’; its major contributory area,namely the ‘Quality of Training and Assessment of Students’; andother contributory areas, namely the ‘Selection and Quality of StudentIntake’, the ‘Quality of Staffing and Learning Resources’, and the‘Management and Quality Assurance’. Each type of area has itscomponent cells, some sixteen cells in total. Each cell has its own setof criteria, giving over 120 criteria in all. Each of the sixteen individ-ual cells will ‘normally’ be graded on a four-point scale: ‘very good’



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(1); ‘good’ (2); ‘adequate’ (3); and ‘poor quality’ (4). There is in allthis a resemblance to the 1988 National Curriculum: its curricularcore is similar to the areas, and the elaborate grading of the NationalCurriculum’s attainment targets is similar to that of the cells and theircomponent criteria. And just as national testing purported to beboth diagnostic and summative, so also does the OFSTED-TTAassessment procedure:

The combination of rigorous inspection and systematic audit willalso help providers to identify their own targets for improvement. Thenature of these targets and the extent to which they are met willbe taken into account in funding and allocation rounds(OFTSED/TTA, para. 1.3).

Take a further term: framework. In the 1980s, as in 1996, the govern-ment equivocated on the degree of central control it was taking: not,it said, a straitjacket, just a framework. Recall the 1987 NationalCurriculum consultation paper:

The Government has concluded that these advantages and consis-tent improvement in standards can be guaranteed only within anational framework for the secular curriculum. To be effective,that must be backed by law – but law which provides a frameworknot a straitjacket (para. 10).

Now the new curriculum for initial teacher training:

It will not be so prescriptive that it dictates what happens on eachcourse between 10 and 11 each Monday morning but will specifythe essentials of what must be taught to trainees (TTA, 1996a, pp.6–7).

But the former Conservative minister, Cheryl Gillan, added that,‘The new training courses will be centrally designed and subject torigorous quality control. Assessment will be carefully regulated’(DfEE, 1996b, 65). And later, on 31 October, 1996 the Secretary ofState endorsed this:

These new powers will allow me to ensure that all teachers aretaught how and when to use the most effective teaching methods.For the first time, under these new powers, I shall set downdetailed course content (DfEE, 1996d).

Thus there is now an integrated structure comprising the TTA,OFSTED and the new Qualifications and Curriculum Authority(QCA). There is to be a clear articulation between the TTA’snational curriculum for teacher training and the National



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Curriculum for pupils. The former School Curriculum andAssessment Authority, with ‘the close cooperation and help of theTeacher Training Agency’, has already produced A Guide to theNational Curriculum (SCAA, 1996):

All courses of initial teacher training must address the compe-tences of newly qualified teachers, as set out by the Departmentfor Education and Employment and the Welsh Office. Studentsshould focus on these competences throughout their training.Some of the competences refer explicitly to the National Curriculum andthis guide provides useful background information to support the devel-opment of these competences (SCAA, 1996 p. 3; emphasis added).

The clear implication is that, in order for assessment to be reliableand comparable, a standardised ‘good’-practice, competence-basedapproach will emerge, with little allowance for differences in teach-ing contexts, and with numerical grading on a four-point scale.

The 1987 National Curriculum had little to say of pedagogy.There were no tips for teachers – no pedagogical basics, only curric-ular basics. But there was much to do with assessment techniques,which were to have pedagogical implications. Doubts wereexpressed that child-centred education could survive the high-stakes, pen-and-paper testing of a prescribed curriculum. Heretherefore was assessment-driven pedagogy.

Teachers who had signed up for ’60s progressivism became rest-less. They objected. Sir Ron Dearing loosened the bureaucracy,allowing for a rather unconvincing combination of valid teachers’assessments and reliable national tests. Similarly, the new nationalcurriculum for teacher training in English and mathematics speci-fies content, but not the pedagogy whereby providers should trans-mit it: ‘The curricula do not specify a course model or scheme ofwork and providers should decide how training is best delivered [. . .]’ (DfEE, 1997a, p. 3).

It can be speculated that providers may contest the objectiveassessment of the TTA’s de-contextualised competences in itsnational curriculum, and – like the school teachers before them –may try to create space for more valid and contextualised assess-ments along the lines suggested by, for example, Moon and Mayes(1993). But whatever trust was once assigned to classroom teachersand to teacher educators by government seems now to be diminish-ing, notwithstanding the title of Circular 10/97: Teaching: HighStatus, High Standards, and notwithstanding also the current Labourgovernment’s commitment to establish a General Teaching Council(GTC), whilst retaining the TTA; indeed, New Labour wishes ‘to



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look closely at the relationship between a General Teaching Council(GTC) and the TTA in establishing the professional framework forteachers’ (DfEE, 1997b, para. 36, p. 51). Just as Sir Ron Dearing’sreview of the National Curriculum mollified the school teachers, sothe GTC may be used to persuade the teacher educators to adoptmore readily the national curriculum for initial training. In this way,informal collegial authority could be set within a national regulatoryframework.

The TTA’s intervention into faculties of education may be a dry-run before serious consideration is given to a national curriculumfor the new ‘mass’ university sector (Hartley, 1995). At the timewhen proposals for the TTA were being debated in Parliament, theCommittee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP, 1993, p. 1)had warned that,

The proposed TTA, a special ‘funding council’ for teacher educa-tion, would be another costly, politically appointed body, whoseestablishment would set a sinister precedent for the possible frag-mentation of higher education.

As the former Conservative government has recently asserted, ‘Weshall learn much from this work [on the national curriculum forITT] to inform the future development of national qualifications’(DfEE, 1996b). Already the Higher Education Quality Council(1995) has raised questions about ‘graduateness’: when is a gradu-ate not a graduate; are degree classifications in one universitycomparable to those in others? A necessary condition for any suchreliable comparison to be made would be a nationally-set examina-tion, which would imply a comparability of content within a subject;in short, a national syllabus in some subjects, at some levels. Alreadyin some areas of initial professional education an external profes-sional body accredits university courses. This mode of accreditationappears to work well, but in this process the government has hith-erto stood aside.

To return to the proposed national curriculum for teacher train-ing: Gardiner (1996, 9) has reported that the CVCP has taken coun-sel on the legality of the Secretary of State’s intention to define thenational curriculum for teacher training. Furthermore, vice-chan-cellors may refuse to validate courses over which university senateshave little or no control, especially if ‘theory’ is put to the margin ofthese ‘competence’ courses. Indeed, if – to repeat Wilson’s ’de-intel-lectualisation’ term – initial training courses could be provided byschools, then the universities may well wish to distance themselvesfrom initial teacher training altogether, leaving them to focus



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instead on research and post-qualification courses. But, even at thislevel, difficulties loom. Yet another ‘problem’ – in-service education– awaits a solution: ‘There is much ill-focused and mediocre in-service training around’ (DfEE, 1996b, item 59). Speaking in July1997, the TTA’s chief executive remarked:

Our aim is for all NQTs to focus on their development needs fromday one. For the first time, they will, with their employers, be clearabout what needs to be achieved, by when. The hit and missapproach to teachers’ professional development is a thing of thepast (TTA, 1997b)

Both the Standing Committee for the Education and Training ofTeachers (SCETT, 1996) and the Universities Council for theEducation of Teachers (UCET, 1996) have been as one in theiropposition to the TTA’s Proposals Paper for Future Use of TTA INSETFunding, with SCETT calling it ‘ideologically driven’. Any subse-quent standardisation of ITT and INSET courses could facilitate agreater use of information technology, a process which has alreadybegun. For example, in February 1994, the Open University admit-ted 1200 PGCE students to its distance-learning course, therebymaking it the largest provider of postgraduate teacher training(Allen, 1994, p. 17). This ‘technical fix’ (Robins and Webster, 1989)may be attractive to any government which seeks simultaneously tomaximise efficiency gains and to standardise curricular content.

5. CONCLUSION

Despite its avowal of choice and diversity, the previous Conservativegovernment in England constructed two national curricula: for chil-dren and for teacher educators; two monuments to modernity –neat, predictable, and coherent. The incoming Labour governmentseems set to retain and refine them. The concern here has mainlybeen with the new national curriculum for initial teacher training inEngland. I have alluded briefly to some of the points of correspon-dence between it and the National Curriculum for pupils which wasdefined in the 1980s. The former Conservative government soughtto justify both in a similar way: a presumed crisis based on ideology,not evidence; a declared need for an urgent solution; hasty consul-tation and quickly-enacted powers; and faint praise. Furthermore,taken together, both national curricula are framed within an emerg-ing isomorphic structure, a complementary mix of central controlover content, assessment and funding, on the one hand, anddevolved ownership of the means whereby these could be adhered



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to, on the other; and all of this overseen by a ‘qualitariat’ whoseexpensive agencies mesh (in theory) to form over-arching bureau-cratic control.

In the ’90s, the colleges and universities involved in teacher train-ing are to be taken to task, and their measured performance to becompared in the league tables which shall comprise the marketplacewhere would-be trainees can gauge the quality of the training onoffer (DfEE, 1996d). Just as the teachers in the school were pulledtowards teaching to the test in the 1980s, so now it looks like theircounterparts in the colleges and universities (and their school-basedmentors) may go the same way, their professional accountability nowmeasured against bureaucratic, public and market forms of account-ability. All this, however, is at the level of policy, which in its imple-mentation will surely be altered in unintended ways. That is to say,although at the level of policy there is an emerging isomorphic struc-ture which frames the two national curricula, it does not follow thatan homogeneity of local organisational structures and practices willbe the result, as studies in the National Health Service have shown(Ferlie et al., 1996, p. 246). But the political space for manoeuvre maybe very limited, and this time the government’s overseer is already upand running. In the 1980s, OFSTED was but an afterthought to theNational Curriculum legislation, and it took time to refine its proce-dures, which now dovetail with those of the TTA.

In sum, the core competences for the teachers in training in the’90s are the counterpart to the core curriculum for the pupils in the’80s. Whereas, before 1987, both primary education and teachereducation were regarded by government as a postmodern mix ofprogressivism, relativism and constructivism, now a modernist neo-behaviourism lights the way ahead, with signposts to the past. Theway forward is now back to basics for pupils and teacher educatorsalike. It seems that government believes that the fractured culture ofpostmodernism can be contained, and that the theoretical disputeswithin the academy can be set aside. Now the TTA and OFSTEDdefine the rules of engagement with both the culture of postmod-ernism and with postmodernist epistemology. Government nowfilters the culture for the consumption of both teacher educatorsand pupils alike, packaging it with clearly-labelled contents.

With the advent of standardised curricula and national testing,some of the conditions for the regulated market have been met. Butthis, as one of the leading pro-market reformers avers, is no market‘based on competing ideas and practices’ (Skidelsky, 1993, p. 24). Aswith schools, so with providers of teacher training: choice andcentralisation may not easily stay a stable mix for long. Others have



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warned of the ‘predictable failure of educational reform’ (Sarason,1990). Melucci (1996) suggests a reason:

The historicist notion of change as a global, homogeneous, andend-directed process has ceased to apply to the analysis ofcomplex societies. [. . .] Change in complex societies is alwaysspecific and cannot be directly transferred from one level orsystem to another. Every variation has effects on the whole, to besure, but always in a mediated fashion (Melucci, 1996, p. 209).

The new national curriculum for teacher training in England nowrepresents a structural articulation with the national curriculum forschools. Whether or not this model for England marks the begin-ning of an international trend remains to be seen, but there is so farlittle sign of this kind of de jure regulation in other advancedeconomies. On the face of it, it appears to be a grand design, elegantin its bureaucratic structure, but curiously out of line with thecomplex cultural, intellectual and political conditions in which itmust be implemented.

6. REFERENCES

ALEXANDER, R. J. (1984) Innovation and continuity in the initial teacher educa-tion curriculum. In R. J. ALEXANDER, M. CRAFT and J. LYNCH (eds) Changein Teacher Education (London, Holt, Rinehart and Winston).

ALLEN, G. (1994) Teacher Training: The Education Bill [HL] 1993/94 [Bill 89 of1993/94] (Research Paper 94/58) (London, House of Commons Library).

BARBER, M. (1996) The National Curriculum: A study in policy (Keele, KeeleUniversity Press).

COMMITTEE OF VICE-CHANCELLORS AND PRINCIPALS OF THE UNIVERSI-TIES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM (CVCP) (1993) Press Release 337: Proposedreforms mean political control over teacher education (1 November) (London, CVCP).

DEARING, R. (1994) The National Curriculum and its Assessment: Final Report(London, SCAA).

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (1987) The National Curriculum5–16: A consultation document (London, DES).

DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1996a) Press Notice:235/96 1996 Shephard announces teacher training college performance tables (11 July1996) (London, DfEE)

DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1996b) Press Notice255/96 Cheryl Gillan Addresses Professional Association of Teachers (29 July 1996)(London, DfEE).

DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1996c) Press Notice302/96: Shake up of teacher training and new focus on leadership skills for headteachers– Shephard. (18 September 1996) (London, DfEE).

DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1996d) Press Notice368/96: New powers for Education Secretary on teacher training course content. (31October 1996) (London, DfEE).



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DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1997a) Circular 10/97Teaching: High Status, High Standards (London, DfEE).

DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (1997b) Excellence inSchools Cm 3641 (London, DfEE).

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Correspondence:Dr David HartleyInstitute for Education and Lifelong LearningUniversity of DundeeNethergateDundeeDD1 4HNScotland

First received on: 3 February 1997Accepted for publication on: 18 March 1997



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repeat prescription: the national curriculum for initial teacher training

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