Some Thoughts on the Administration of Teacher Education

Published date01 February 1964
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/eb009582
Date01 February 1964
Pages94-107
AuthorG.W. MUIR
Subject MatterEducation
94 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL, ADMINISTRATION
VOLUME II, NUMBER 2 OCTOBER, 1964
Some Thoughts on the Administration of
Teacher Education
G. W.
MUIR
The administration of teacher education is at present undergoing
close scrutiny in several Western nations. In U.S.A., where most
teachers are prepared to state-determined standards by univer-
sities,
there are accusations that the accrediting associations are
in the hands of an Establisliment which discounts academic
courses and places a premium on orthodoxy. In England the
recently introduced three-year colleges are under fire and the
Robbins Committee has recommended the award of degrees by
Colleges of Education (the old training colleges) whose link
with the universities will be strengthened. In Scotland teacher
preparation remains separated from the universities, the Colleges
of Education being Independent bodies co-ordinated by a body
of professional teachers the Scottish Council for the Education
of Teachers. In Australia, which has often followed Scottish
example, it seems likely that teacher preparation, at present the
responsibility of state education departments, will become the
responsibility of the profession
itself,
as in Scotland.
In many countries teaching stands alone among the professions
in that citizens are compelled by law to make use of its practi-
tioners. A state which compels children to go to school is, by virtue
of the compulsion it seeks to exercise, interested in the supply of
teachers which make it possible to enforce the law. It is a simple
extension of this proposition to point out that once a government
is interested in numbers of teachers, it also becomes interested in
the quality of those teachers and the preparation which is con-
sidered necessary before they can be allowed to practice. But the
state is not alone in its interest in the preparation of teachers.
While it is true that in Australia the state employs teachers to
man the public schools, elsewhere the authority to run and staff
publicly maintained schools is delegated to a local authority
MR. W. G. MUIR is Principal of the Armidale Teachers' College and is a
member of the Council of the University of New England. He has taught in
New South Wales public high schools and was for a time Lecturer in Geography
at Sydney Teachers' College. Previous to his present appointment, he was
Principal of the Wagga Wagga Teachers' College, New South Wales. Mr. Muir
is an honours graduate in science of the University of Sydney. He has written
several journal articles and was for a time editor of The Australian Geographer.
During 1963 he visited Canada, the United States and Great Britain under the
auspices of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He is a member of the
Australian College of Education.

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