International Policy Perspectives on Change in Teacher Education

The timeframe for publishing this book is an interesting one internationally. As increasingly sophisticated and economically competitive ‘knowledge societies’ evolve around the world, national and international demands on education multiply, demanding the production of high-quality educational ‘outcomes’ from schooling and higher education. Intensifying globalisation and international competitiveness has had profound consequences for national and transnational government policies for education. Certainly, in schools, results from PISA and other international attainment indicators have often driven high senses of government anxieties about educational – and hence economic – competitiveness and sometimes result in attempts to reform schooling, change teaching methods and/or introduce austere testing regimes. As part of the agenda for reforming schools, many governments across the world now see teacher education as a policy lever for improving teaching and school performance at national levels and for reforming teacher professionalism.