Throughout the 1980s increasing attention was paid to the quality of teacher education by the government, culminating in the publication of Circular 9/92 (DFE 1992). It decreed that schools were to play a larger and much more active role than before, as the practical side of the training was to be enhanced at the expense of the educational theory provided by the HEIs. The government believed that encouraging more practical training through a partnership of equals between the HEIs and the schools would improve the professional competence of the NQTs and eventually raise standards in the classroom. An aura of co-operation and consensus pervades the notion of partnership, but this research suggests that the concept is imprecise and open to many different interpretations. It also supports the view that there is a significant difference between the image of partnership projected by the government and the intentions, values and practices of those immediately involved in initial teacher education. The resulting disparity between the rhetoric of policy and the reality of partnership is pinpointed and explained by a critique of the Universities of Sussex and Brighton and twelve of their respective partner secondary schools. This investigation adopts a case study approach. Evidence collected through surveys, interviews and observation of participants within the partnership - such as university tutors, trainees, mentors and professional tutors, together with a review of the contextual literature, are used to illuminate the problems experienced by the practitioners. The evidence presented shows that the success of the partnership and its continued existence in its present form is dependent upon a variety of factors: adequate communication, effective mentorships, clearly-defined assessment and standardisation procedures and the development of a professional ethos to avoid undue reliance on good-will. Major restrictions are also placed upon the delivery of effective initial teacher education by inadequate funds and the shortage of time. More importantly however, the straightforward perception of partnership promoted by the government is in itself seen to be flawed, because there are inherent tensions between the HEIs and the schools. This results in conflicting expectations over key issues, which if unresolved will continue to jeopardise the development of partnership and affect the quality of initial teacher education.

This is a formative evaluation study of the "Class-Teacher" pre-service teacher education programme at the University of Jordan. The aim was to identify and evaluate the programme as perceived by the programme's participants. The choice of the topic was inspired by the researcher's perception that there were negative faculty and students' attitudes toward the programme. The programme's evaluation was intended to be responsive to its participants' needs and concerns. It was also planned and implemented within the interpretive paradigm of research. Stake's countenance model of evaluation was used mainly to guide the process of data collection. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection including questionnaires, formal and informal interviews and document analysis were used. The fieldwork took place in two different contexts, the university where the theoretical (on-campus) part of the programme has been implemented and the cooperating schools where the student's teaching practice took place. The target groups were student teachers, university faculty members and supervisors, co-operating teachers and headteachers at the co-operating schools. The findings of the study indicate that there is a lack of clarity regarding the objectives of the programme among the majority of its participants. Concerning the programme's curriculum, the findings show that the student teachers welcome the variety of its content. However, the students criticised certain aspects of the programme's content, particularly the professional sequence, of lack of relevance to the school curriculum and therefore to their needs as student teachers. The findings also show that there is a need to increase the weight of the school-based component of the programme since there is a perceived lack of balance in the content. Although there is a perceived lack of communication between The University and the cooperating schools that has an effect on the training process, student teachers seem most satisfied with their school-based training. The final chapter further discusses the above as well as many other main findings, reports the problems raised and posits a set of recommendations intended to resolve the identified problems.

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