Accreditation and Teacher Education: A Cross-National Case Study

Abstract

Development of special procedures for teacher training accreditation forms a way of ensuring high quality teacher training that is common among countries to varying degrees. The article describes particularities of national models of such accreditation based on experience of five developed English-speaking countries. The research is designed as an exploratory comparative case study of national approaches to accreditation. One of the important common features of the countries, though not strictly related to program or institutional accreditation, is related to availability of special qualification conditions for obtaining a licence to practice as teacher. Stated requirements are implemented mainly in the form of an examination for admission, most often aimed at identifying the teacher candidate's literacy and numeracy degree. All countries chosen for analysis provide some form of program accreditation in the field of higher education, and most countries implement separate accreditation procedures for teacher education. Among the reviewed countries only Hong Kong applies the approach in which all powers in the field of accreditation of universities and programs are concentrated in a single agency -in other countries the "market approach" to accreditation of universities and programs, i.e. participation of various organizations, including foreign ones, in this activity is widespread to a greater or lesser extent. In addition, it is common for leading universities to be granted with the right to implement numerous selfaccreditation programs.