Teacher Education Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand: Global Trends Meet Local Imperatives

Abstract

There is an increasing realisation in Aotearoa New Zealand of the impacts of colonisation and racism on the education system and inequity in society. The voices of students and communities, sought to inform policy, have clarified the local significance of these key challenges. Two new policy documents, promulgated by the regulatory authority for teaching, the Teaching Council, outline the goals and requirements for initial teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand. These policy documents respond to the local context, but also contain many elements of global discourses about initial teacher education, some of which are disguised by being presented as solutions to local problems. Some teacher educators and teacher education researchers are shaping the way the new policies are expressed, by taking up the central local challenge of responding to Aotearoa New Zealand’s 1840 Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Whether the global trends embedded in the new policies, or the local challenges they also address, become more significant in the conduct and shape of teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand, remains to be seen.