Changing modes of governance in Australian teacher education policy

This chapter provides a detailed analysis of developments in Australian teacher education policy since the 1990s, with a particular focus on national policy shifts since the late 2000s. Our main argument is that during this period, two dominant trends can be observed in Australian teacher education policy. First is a progressive shift towards nationalisation, driven largely by transnational economic imperatives and convergences within international research about what constitutes teacher quality and effectiveness. Second is a significant shift in the way ‘the state’ attempts to steer and govern teacher education, characterised by a new logic of standards-based governance that plays out at the national level and includes significant involvement from the federal government. Although these two trends have similarities with international developments, we argue that neither trend can be adequately understood without focusing on the dynamic and unique nature of Australian federalism. The distinctive features of Australian federalism not only mediate transnational policy imperatives and trajectories but also provide certain conditions of possibility for imagining and governing teacher education now and in the future.