Teacher Education Curriculum and Its Collaborative Implementation Model: A Transformative Strategy for Teacher Education in Iran

This article engages the reader with a critical and challenging issue in teacher education domain. The issue chosen is the structure of the program which extends itself quite naturally to the issue of implementation in terms of institutions involved. The author argues that although there is no definite answer to the question of which pre-service teacher education program assures training of effective teachers, a viable teacher education curriculum should consist of four elements, together forming an image of a square. The four elements are described as: content (disciplinary) knowledge component, general educational knowledge component, content specific professional knowledge coupled with practicum and induction, which refers to a one year monitoring and coaching of novice teachers. The four-sided program needs to be implemented in a cooperative spirit which involves the higher education sector and public education sector, thus depicting a cross-sectoral picture of the task of teacher education. The first two components come naturally under the expertise of universities and the last two are components for which the public education sector is better prepared. The implementation scheme discussed in the article presents a serious challenge to the current thinking and policy direction in Iran which has recently rested the case for teacher education by awarding all the responsibilities to the public education sector and exempting the higher education from performing any meaningful role in this respect. The policy has manifested itself in the 2012 enactment of a legislature authorizing the establishment of a single university run by ministry of education to assume the full responsibility for teacher education.