Teaching education today

Trying to provide an overview of the teaching offered by UK university departments and faculties of education today is, to put it mildly, something of a challenge. This is because, at the present time, so much is in fl ux; nothing will stand still. The largest and most obvious challenge is the economic recession. As we will examine in more detail in Chapter 7, the massive expansion of higher education over the past 30 years has been predicted on an assumption that investment in higher education – for individuals, for their families and for society at large – will be economically benefi cial. But as economic growth itself falters – and on an unprecedented scale – so, too, may that assumption; indeed, the UK government has already questioned its own historical commitment to the funding of higher education. In its response to the Browne Report (2010) on higher education funding and student fi nance, the UK government (BIS, 2011) accepted the broad thrust of Browne’s argument that the state should no longer fund universities directly for providing teaching, except in exceptional circumstances. Instead, the cost for most university courses in England, including those in education, should be moved to students themselves, with a consequent substantial rise in fees (up to £9,000 a year for undergraduate courses in many universities). Although currently limited to universities in England, the funding changes also have major implications for devolved governments as well in that their national budgets are being reduced to refl ect these changed assumptions. At the time of writing, the implications of these dramatic changes have yet to work their way through the system.