ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The discourse of government policy on teacher education and training has been conducted, for the most part, in terms of ‘competences’, ‘standards’, ‘skills’ and ‘outcomes’. Officially, very little attention is paid to purpose, to questions of meaning. Almost as little attention has been given to the wider purpose of the Standards to be attained by the student teacher. The emphasis in the new Standards documentation (Qualifying to Teach: Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status and the Requirements of Initial Teacher Training, TTA: 2003) is still largely on what the teacher can do, rather than what the teacher is and can become: if the sole focus is on the teacher as needing to acquire certain skills, then ‘training’ is considered only in terms of methods and techniques. Whilst the new Standards have an introductory section on professional values, they remain largely a competence-based model of teacher training. The Standards still portray the teacher as a technician charged with specific tasks that are measurable in outcome. Whilst there is a clear desire to make teaching a more rigorous and more accountable discipline, the above process could undermine teacher professionalism. How does such methodology meet the concept of professional values? This enquiry itself begs two further questions: ‘What is a profession?’ and ‘What do we mean by professional values?’
