ABSTRACT
The preparation and continuing professional development of teachers have been in constant evolution ever since the 1944 Education Act, that great Act of Parliament which, in the aftermath of the war, created a 'national service locally administered'. Subsequent evolution reflected the changing understandings: of the place of teacher education within a unitary system of higher education; of the place of schools and the profession in that training; of the content of the training and professional development; and of the responsibilities of government. The government believed that assurance over the quality of teacher training was as necessary as assurance over the quality of teaching in schools. The nineteenth-century training of teachers took place in training colleges run mainly by the Church of England, though a few emerged from the Catholics and Non-conformists to support their growing number of schools.
