ABSTRACT
The 1970s in Australia have seen the adoption of longer periods of preservice teacher education and a surge of development in in-service education. These changes coincide with a dramatic increase in the complexity of the teacher’s role in curriculum decision-making, increased and sometimes conflicting public pressures on the content and style of teaching, and the need to cater for a wider diversity of students. Universities and colleges have responded with courses for serving teachers that may be seen as having a variety of functions – upgrading, reconceptualizing and extending initial training in the light of teaching experience, developing specializations, and training for research and development. They have also been involved in other forms of in-service education, eg short courses and consultancies, but on a relatively small scale, reflecting uncertainty about this kind of role for tertiary institutions and lack of funding for it. On the other hand, the institutions are working hard to overcome a mythology that courses leading to qualifications are carried on apart from the concerns, and without the participation of, schools and educational systems and that they do not effectively address the real problems of practice. The problems of articulation between various forms of in-service teacher education and of the relationship between theory and practice are examined in this paper, and a number of examples of progress described.
