ABSTRACT
In many respects higher education institutions operate in conditions closer to the market place than do schools. Their main sources of income are: the fees which students bring with them if they choose a particular institution and are acceptable to that institution; contracts with private and public agencies for research and developmental work won normally on the basis of competitive tendering in which considerations of quality and cost have been weighed; and research income from government based on an independent assessment of the quality and productivity of individual departments in comparison with others working in the same subject area. In each of these areas, universities are in competitive relations with each other:
Most of these conditions apply equally in the context of teacher education. There is however some central government control in this context over the supply side of teacher education: over the curriculum which is offered in initial teacher training and over its mode of delivery. Initial training courses have to satisfy criteria laid down in Department for Education (DFE) Circulars 9/92 and 14/93 defining, for example, the competences to be achieved among its trainees and the period of time that they spend in training in school, and these criteria are
backed up by OFSTED inspections. The DFE also exercises considerable control on the demand side of the market by setting limits on the total number of students who may be admitted to training and by allocating target numbers of students to individual training institutions (though these have themselves been in part a function of previous success in recruitment and the cost and quality of training provided) and by control over the rate of payment in the funding which universities receive per student.
