ABSTRACT
Education quality varies around the globe, and much of the debate about quality in initial teacher education (ITE) tends to assume that getting it “right” will have an impact on other areas of the educational infrastructure, but often fails to take into account local variations. Even though teachers alone are not able to affect societal change, education policies have focused on ITE as a driver to improve quality, leading to an array of quality measures and indicators. Using Harvey’s distinction between standards and quality, this chapter argues that these indicators are proxies for quality, which do not reflect the essence of teacher education, which is that it should be a transformative, educational experience. Transformation, however, is beset with a number of quality conundrums: ideas about ITE which seek to make it better, but if deployed unwisely can adversely affect its quality. The research upon which this book is based examined five university-based teacher education programmes from different countries, drawing together how they tackle different quality conundrums within the context of their particular locations.
