Teacher education is seen internationally as a key lever in improving pupil outcomes, and, ultimately, enhancing nation states’ competitiveness on the global stage. The current global meta-narrative pronounces that ‘teachers matter’ and that it is not just more teachers but quality teachers that are required.
Recognising education as having transformative capacity focuses on the importance of teachers, highlighting the need for teachers who not only have high-level knowledge and skills, but who also have the dispositions and the social and political awareness to carry their responsibilities wisely. Thus, teacher education has never been more important, and yet it rarely attracts large-scale funding and is often accused of lacking a coherent, theoretically informed literature base
The Scottish Government investment in the ‘Measuring Quality in ITE’ (MQuITE) project – a collaborative, longitudinal study of teacher education quality in Scotland – has facilitated significant cross-Scotland momentum in developing a theoretically-informed empirical evidence base. Therefore, this SERA network seeks to build on this momentum and provide a forum for further consolidating and extending this collaborative effort to build research and enhance practice within teacher education.
TEN welcomes membership from researchers (established academics and research students), research users (GTCS, Education Scotland/SCEL, RICs, Scottish Government) and practitioners. Anyone interested in joining the network should contact the network convenors.
Network Convenors
Lorna Hamilton lorna.hamilton@ed.ac.uk
Nicola Carse Nicola.carse@ed.ac.uk
To find out more about the network and to join the network mailing list please contact either Lorna or Nicola.
2023 Events
- May 2023 Final MQuITE Report Seminar
- June 2023 Sharing research in teacher education event held jointly with University of Strathclyde Teacher Education Network at University of Strathclyde
- November 2023 Workshop at SERA Conference
Publications
- Teacher Preparation in Scotland book edited by Rachel Shanks