ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines aspects of the complex bureaucratic and multi-agency system into which the new teacher is inducted, organisational structures which help define teaching as a profession. It provides an overview of initial teacher education through the prism of four key and interrelated aspects of the profession: the gatekeepers, initial teacher training, the inspectors, monitoring and reporting on. The most common application route for graduates is a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), or in Scotland the Professional Graduate Diploma of Education. Initiatives like the Masters in Teaching and Learning and the introduction of Masters level qualification into the PGCE would also indicate an increased emphasis upon the continuing professional development of teachers as graduates. In specific terms of research into teacher education, one of the strands of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme highlights how professional standards, so prevalent a mark of a new professionalism, may 'pay too little attention to what "becoming" a teacher is really like'.
