ABSTRACT
When responding to Kenneth Clarke's consultation document on the future of Initial Teacher Education it seems that many teacher educators indicated a broad support for the proposal that the revised criteria should include a list of competences that all students should follow throughout their training. And it was perhaps because of that support that this aspect of the original proposal survived intact when the new criteria were eventually published in June as Circular 9/92 (35/92 in Wales) (DFE 1992). In this chapter I want to concentrate on what I see as some of the limitations and dangers of over-simplistic interpretations of the competence approach advocated within the Circular.
