The Teacher Training Agency, Continuing Professional Development Policy and the Definition of Competences for Serving Teachers

Government reform of the United Kingdom education system since the 1980s has involved a series of policy interventions in Initial Teacher Training to specify the knowledge and competences required of Newly Qualified Teachers. Parallel intervention in Continuing Professional Development for serving teachers has been limited, but radical proposals by the Teacher Training Agency to draw up national standards for new categories of ‘expert teachers’ raise important issues about academic and professional autonomy. Further regulation of CPD and related research will impact on teachers, schools, LEAs and higher education, and create new definitions of professionalism. Issues of power and accountability need urgently to be debated in the wider profession to forestall pre‐emptive arrogation of control by the TTA.