Forward to the Past in New Zealand Teacher Education

With particular reference to the former Palmerston North College of Education, this paper illustrates how a distinctive and enduring culture of teacher education developed within early post-World War Two New Zealand teachers' colleges. This culture, it is contended, was shaped by two overriding factors. The first was the ongoing requirement to train, at minimal cost, competent classroom technicians for the nation's primary schools in accordance with the laws of supply and demand as determined by government. The second was the influence of the dominant social and cultural assumptions of the era regarding teacher trainees, particularly if they were young and female. The paper concludes that this traditionally coercive culture of teacher education shows every sign of being powerfully reinforced by current neo-liberal initiatives aimed at bringing about the technocratic modernisation of today's teacher education institutions.