ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on the experiences of a secondary initial teacher education (ITE) director to discuss how changes in the ITE system and organisation in England in the past few decades have reflected the ongoing marketisation of education, first introduced in the 1988 Education Act, and the imposed marketised focus on competition between ITE providers and choice for ‘consumers’ – that is, ITE students and schools. He comments on how, in his view, decision-making associated with these changes contravenes what he sees as issues of social justice in the way that it has served to marginalise and silence the voices of teacher educators in higher education institutions (HEIs).
Issues raised from the author’s perspective in this chapter include:
the way in which recent teacher preparation provision within England has been ideological with a view to imposing singular ideas about what and how children should learn, regardless of what others in the sector, either in England or internationally, thought;
the importance of collaboration with the teacher education sector and a move towards taking account of the voices of those within the sector to address important principles of social justice and the right to be heard.
