This paper discusses the nature of university-school partnerships, and draws upon current practice in an English university to consider how innovative and creative solutions might promote capacity building in universities in the Middle East and North Africa.

University-school partnerships have been a feature of UK teacher education (both pre- and in-service provision) for several decades.  These initially developed from a mutual recognition of the value of bringing together the distinctive and complementary expertise and perspectives of the academy and practitioners (Pedder et al 2010), and reflected an emphasis on critically reflective practice within all aspects of teacher development.  For teacher educators, developing the reflective teacher means more than just ‘asking searching questions’ (Dymoke 2012) about the technical competences within one’s practice, but involves a consideration of the aims and the consequences of one’s teaching (Pollard 2008) and developing research-informed, critical stances towards classroom practice, and seeing schools within the context of wider social policies that might impact upon the quality of learning and teaching in the classroom itself (Brookfield 1995).

The most effective university-school partnerships are long-standing, stable and united by a common set of expectations about what constitutes the principles of effective learning and teaching (Moore et al 2005). However, in England these partnerships have been fundamentally reshaped by successive governments’ policies shifting the ‘centre of gravity’ of teacher education towards ‘school-led’ partnerships (DfE 2011; Furlong 2013).

This approach (intensified under the Coalition Government elected in 2010) has run in parallel with ‘New Public Management’ era reforms (Apple 2005), with schools and universities exposed to a centrally-regulated ‘audit culture’ within the context of a neo-liberal market environment (Ball 2003; Mansell 2007; Wilkins & Wood 2009).  A key element of reforms of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) has been the development of standardized 'competence' criteria for the assessment of teachers’ performance.  These have increasingly reflected the wider policy climate by increasing the emphasis on training in the ‘craft skills’ of teaching, and reducing that on more ‘theoretical’ aspects of teacher education.  This aligns with the school-led ITE model, but can also be construed as contributing to a more ‘instrumental’ view of teaching (Leaton-Gray 2006) that fits less well with the notion of developing the critically reflective teacher. 

UK policy is also relocating professional development to schools, through the Teaching School initiative (NCSL 2013). Teaching Schools are responsible for driving improvement by sharing their best practice and building capacity across the sector through a ‘school-to-school’ support model (DfE 2013).  Through this initiative, schools are encouraged to develop their status as professional learning communities, in which teachers collaboratively interrogate their practice in a ‘growth-promoting’ way (Stoll & Louis 2007).  Whilst this aspiration for schools is supported by research evidence (Stoll et al 2006), it sits less comfortably with the instrumentalist, craft-dominated model of ITE proposed.  The role of the university is also peripheral to the TSA; Alliances are required to include university partners, but in an ‘associate’ one, commissioned to provide specific elements of teacher development rather than a genuinely equal partner.

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