Transforming teacher education or transforming the school: a dangerous dilemma?

It is quite remarkable that in many countries, teacher education has become the new focus of attention of policy-makers and politicians. Or perhaps this is not that remarkable if we look at it from the perspective of the “one-level-up” hypothesis. After all, if the ongoing – some might say: relentless – pressure on schools to improve their performance is not yielding the results that policy-makers and politicians want to see, then the problem must be located “one level up,” that is, with the quality of teacher education. One could argue that shifting the focus from schools to teacher education is logical, particularly if one falls for the widespread but problematic belief that teaching is the most important inschool factor influencing student achievement. After all, if school improvement stalls, it must have something to do with teachers, and since teachers are educated in order to become teachers, the quality of teacher education appears quickly as the main culprit – or in terms of policy: as the main target of policy interventions. It is interesting to see that the logic of “one level up” has its limits because policy-makers and politicians very seldomly conclude that the problem lies with educational policy and educational politics. At most, they blame the way in which policies have been taken up or implemented. But the idea that the policy or the surrounding politics itself is the problem is hardly ever considered. Where it concerns teacher education, there are generally two strategies for improvement. One strategy, which is popular in many countries, is that of attracting the “right” candidates to teacher education programmes. This may sound reasonable and fits well into a policy rhetoric that complains about the quality of students who opt for a career in teaching. But one could well argue that a search for the “right” or the “best” candidates for teacher education actually displays a disbelief in the power of education itself. It almost suggests that teacher education can only be successful if it is able to attract the right students. But this claim is as problematic as saying that schools can only improve if they are able to attract the “right” students. (This is notwithstanding the fact that these selectionmechanisms are of course ongoing and may provide very different “evidence” about what the most important factors influencing student achievement actually are.) The other avenue for the improvement of teacher education is, of course, about what happens in teacher education programmes themselves. These are questions of the curriculum, the pedagogy, the relationship between practical and theoretical components, the role of standards and professional values, the intellectual climate, the role of study, inquiry and research, and so on. Teacher educators know that these aspects matter and also know that there are ongoing challenges about meaningful curricula, relevant pedagogies, a productive relationship between practical and theoretical components, and the critical engagement with standards, values, and wider trends in society. One ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 2023, VOL. 51, NO. 3, 213–215 https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2023.2207290