Abstract

This paper considers the teacher education system from a cost and financing perspective. It begins by providing an overview of the education system as a whole and the socio-economic context in which it operates. It then moves to focus on teacher education and analyses enrolment at teacher training colleges (TTCs), tutor qualifications, and teacher supply and demand. It then draws a number of policy-related conclusions from this analysis. It notes that, in the context of significant population growth and teacher attrition, the outputs of TTCs need to increase if pupil-teacher ratios are to be kept at the current level and numbers of untrained teachers in the system are to be decreased. Therefore, to achieve this goal, three possible policy options and their consequences are considered in detail: firstly, resource allocation to teacher training colleges could be increased; secondly, internal efficiency in the TTCs could be improved; or thirdly, more radical alternatives could be considered, involving distance and modular approaches to teacher education, public/private partnerships, and more staged professional development in the early stages of a teacher’s career, rather than the current “front-loaded” model of three years of pre-service training. The paper ends with a consideration of some aspects of the proposed “In-In-Out” reform in teacher education, which will increase teaching practice to one year, and highlights some of the cost implications and likely outcomes of such a policy.