ABSTRACT
Teacher education was under attack during most of the 1970s, and this chapter begins by examining the sources of the pressures to which it was subjected, both those resulting from the fall in birth-rates and the decline in the need for teachers, and those associated with the failure of education to meet exaggerated public expectations, and the consequent criticism of the preparation of teachers.
In the developing countries criticisms were growing that the nature of the education provided in schools was often irrelevant to the needs of the community served, and the teacher training institutions were required to produce teachers of a new kind. The nature of the problem is discussed and some approaches to its solution described.
In the developed countries the response to pressure has come partly through structural change and partly through revision of curriculum and methods. Examples of the former are looked at, and there is some detailed examination of the most frequently adopted changes of the latter kind. An attempt is made to assess the position at the beginning of the 1980s with regard to microteaching, the competency-based approach, techniques of mastery learning, and alterations in the arrangements for teaching practice to give the schools a greater part to play in teacher preparation.
The chapter sees teacher education as having lost the complacency which was common in the 1960s, and having been strengthened, if also scarified, by the attacks of the 1970s. Institutions which train teachers all over the world are now much more conscious of the need to engage themselves in the frequent revision of courses, and much more willing to enter into partnership with other agencies in the work of training. It is here that their best hope lies, for the training institutions should no more stand alone than should initial training itself be separated from the rest of the continuing professional development of teachers.
