The delivery of technology content in one-year initial teacher education partnership schemes

This paper describes a model for the delivery of Technology subject content in the new teacher education partnership arrangement starting in 1993. It is based upon the scheme initially tried with articled teachers and which has now been further developed. The University of Manchester model of initial teacher education is based on the principle of empowerment of the classroom, laboratory and workshop teachers in the mentor role, rather than the use of a top-down model in which the school senior management pass the training through the hierarchical structure to the student. The simple subdivision of the work of the higher education institutions and the schools into theory and practice has been shown to be unsatisfactory. It is shown how the two partners in the scheme can jointly improve the quality of the teacher education provided for the students by allowing the students to be the auditors of their own progress; it is shown how individualisation of the students' programmes can be very effective in optimum use of their time and in reducing unnecessary repetition.