Post Compulsory Teacher Educators: Connecting Professionals

Book excerpt: This book provides a call to action for post-compulsory teacher education professionals, both in the UK and internationally, to unite around key principles and practices. The professional, educational and funding turbulence experienced by post-compulsory teacher education since 2008 has been significant. Austerity financing and increasing government intervention have provided many new and difficult challenges. At the same time evidence is building that the quality of teaching is the most important contributor to the quality of learning and achievement, and teacher education is demonstrably one of the most important influences on that teaching quality. The mainly workplace-based partnership model of teacher education used in the post-compulsory education (PCE) sector resonates well with a number of key current developments in the UK and broader field of teacher education. PCE teacher educators are particularly well placed to tell their story and share their vision of a better future for teachers through their own experiences, values and principles. Written by a range of post-compulsory teacher educators, the text therefore is an informed and passionate argument for: improving the professional recognition of teacher education and teacher educators; demonstrating how teacher education already connects teaching professionals into an engaged and collaborative professional community; providing strategies to enact this vision through connected, democratic professionalism. This title is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.