Both Russia and Ireland are currently living through a series of far-reaching attempts to redefine the value bases, the institutional arrangements and practical processes involved in the education of school teachers. Much of this is derived from what Darling-Hammond and Lieberman (2012) have pointed to as patterns in globalised policy-action on teachers and teaching that have emerged in many countries over the closing decades of the 20^th century. We have argued previously (Valeeval and Gafurov, 2016; Galvin, 2015) that this policy-action seeks to move systems towards a technician-style preparation for teaching, one that often excludes meaningful contact with university and educational research linked to improving professional practice. They contrasted this with a professional formation that is university based, that is informed by research, that has a strong focus on developing the student-teacher's pedagogical knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge, and that includes a strong clinical component (Darling-Hammond and Lieberman, 2012). The study of different systems of teacher education in different countries where teacher educators work in different conditions and following different patterns helps us to understand the value of this expansive view (c.f. MacBeath 2012, Fullan 2011, Sahlberg 2014, inter alia.).

This paper brings forward ongoing research in comparative perspective on policy –led teacher education reform in Russia and Ireland. It focuses in particular on emerging models of university-set initialprofessional formation, drawing-out how changing national prescriptions are challenging existing cultures of professionalisation and teacher education in unexpected ways. These are framed in relation to Valeeva’s ongoing work on emerging approaches to teacher professionalism in the context of the Russian teacher professional standard (RTPS) of 2013, and resulting changes in teacher education. Insights derived from recently completed work by Galvin and McMorrough (2016) add perspectives from an EU ‘post-Bologna’ reading of the Department of Education and Skills, Ireland, sponsored Report of the International Review Panel on the Structure of Initial Teacher Education Provision in Ireland (Sahlberg, Furlong and Munn 2012). This offers some interesting comparative insights in relation to the ongoing-Russian policy reform processes. Both are strongly framed around consolidation and ‘surplus’ and the shifting value bases of teachers and teaching resulting from governance and regulatory activity – in one case by the Teaching Council (Ireland), in the other by collateral impact from a federation-level, higher-education master plan Kuzminov, Semenov & Froumin (2015).

The proposed paper addresses aspects of what we content is a neo-liberally inspired ‘disruption’ agenda which is seen potentially to derail promising work ongoing in the reimagining of teacher education in both Russia and Ireland, and surprisingly similar institutional and legislative arrangements that are being installed to frame the 'delivery' of new model teacher education across the full continuum In each setting much of the contestation around values bases is framed upon question of what counts as “legitimate knowledge”(Apple, 2014) in the construction of teacher education discourse and the contrasting realities which dominate ‘network governance practices’(Ball 2012)  at a broader public policy level. The proposed contribution raises and address questions about the governance of new model teacher education in both constituencies. It reports ongoing policy scholarship relating to important questions concerning developments in Irish and Russian teacher education in terms of how new model professional practice is envisioned and produced, and particularly how it relates to the university in its new ‘21^st century’ guise.

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