Even before the contents of the government’s controversial teacher training review were published last month, providers of all shapes and sizes were on edge.

In March, dozens of universities - training more than 10,000 new teachers a year - warned that they may withdraw their provision if their suspicions about the reforms were realised.

And when Tes revealed in May that the review could lead to the number of providers allowed to operate being slashed, the MillionPlus university group warned of a risk to the “pipeline” of new recruits.

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So when the long-awaited outcomes were published in July, including the controversial suggestion that all providers should go through a “rigorous” process of reaccreditation, tempers across the sector were already high.

The expert advisory group behind the review, led by Ian Bauckham, chief executive of the Tenax Schools Trust, was appointed to draw up plans for a more “effective and efficient” ITT market.

But the resulting proposals have been described by some as “fundamentally flawed”, with the University of Cambridge even threatening to pull out of teacher training altogether if the recommendations are implemented in their current form.

So why is the ITT review so controversial?

1. Threat to academic freedom

The review report recommends that all providers should be accredited against a new set of standards for “high-quality training provision”, including a “fully-developed, evidence-based curriculum which explicitly delivers all aspects of the ITT Core Content Framework (CCF)”.

But many universities feel the requirements set for the curriculum are far too prescriptive and could compromise their academic freedom.

In response to the DfE’s consultation on the review’s proposals, Cambridge University said: “The recommendations make prescriptions regarding how the curriculum should be sequenced, what and how trainees should be taught, how trainees should undertake placements, how mentors should be trained and do their jobs, how trainees should be assessed, and a range of quality assurance requirements and arrangements.

“Taken together, these comprise a curriculum which would undermine the innovative and ambitious teacher education curriculum that we already have in place, lowering standards in the process.”

The University of Oxford also warned that the report proposed “centralised control” over curriculum content, which will have “clear implications for partnerships and a resultant reduction in academic freedom”.

And the British Educational Research Association (BERA) said the recommendations would “marginalise and compromise the autonomy of initial teacher training programmes” within higher education institutions (HEIs).

“Many universities would not wish to accept greater prescription about the content of courses because this would undermine academic independence,” BERA said.

“It would also enable successive governments to control the curriculum for, and linked to this the assessment of, teacher training in a way that is unprecedented.”

Meanwhile, the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) warned that “the continued involvement of some universities in teacher education might be at risk if they are expected to slavishly follow and accept current and potentially time-limited DfE approved orthodoxies and deliver prescribed curricula”.

2. Lack of evidence

Many stakeholders have also argued that the review’s claims that it promotes “evidence-based” teacher training are unfounded.

Cambridge said that, ironically, while the review “champions an evidence-based approach”, much of the evidence behind the proposals “is either untested or not sufficiently robust”.

“Our view, as a leading centre of education research, is that the review’s specifications are not based on the best evidence available about what works in teaching, or teacher education,” the university said.

“At best the underlying evidence is restricted and partial, and overlooks the need to guard against fads in teacher training that may turn out to be unhelpful to future teachers.”

Rachel Hewitt, chief executive of MillionPlus, said: “The reforms as currently outlined represent little short of an experiment with the teacher education ecosystem at a time of unprecedented strain on schools.”

And BERA stressed in its response: “There is a need for ITT reform on this scale to be informed by the necessary range of robust independent research, for example into the development of teachers as professionals, and the extensive knowledge base that exists about what constitutes effective teacher education.

“We do not believe that this consultation is informed by such independent robust research.”

3. Cookie-cutter teachers?

Many of those objecting to the proposals cite a threat to the agency of student teachers - with trainees potentially made passive, rather than active, participants in their education.

The UCL Institute of Education (IOE) said that while it understood initial teacher education (ITE) to be “an intellectual and ambitious professional endeavour that reaches beyond a skills-based or technical approach to teaching”, it believed the report took a very different tack.

“The review presents teaching as general, easily replicated sequences of activities, based in a limited and set evidence base,” it said.

“This is undermining of teaching as an expert profession. The proposals also misunderstand and misrepresent the process of professional learning, as standardised and linear rather than unique to each student teacher.

“We are disappointed that the review essentially positions (student) teachers as passive consumers of a narrow set of research findings as well as atomised chunks of knowledge.”

BERA also argued: “It is vital that the intellectual nature of teaching as a profession is maintained and that teachers are not simply seen as technicians.

“As we made clear in the BERA-RSA Review of Research and Teacher Education, high quality teaching must be informed by the most robust evidence available, but this cannot be achieved by seeing teachers as passive receivers of evidence.

“It is important that teachers are ‘research-literate’ and able to examine and reflect on their own teaching in the light of an informed understanding of the research base.

“The educative process is more complex than this consultation implies and the proposals risk undermining the quality of teaching in England.”

4. Unrealistic timeline

Among the most controversial topics up for debate is the proposed timeline for the reforms.

In the consultation document accompanying the review report, the DfE said the proposed reaccreditation process could be completed by September 2022 - with successful applicants set to launch their “new” ITT courses the following year.

But stakeholders have called this timescale “unrealistic and unworkable”.

Cambridge said: “Alongside our partner schools, we would need to evaluate the current programme in relation to any new requirements, and then undergo an extensive and lengthy revalidation process.

“Even if the proposals were acceptable, ironically, the short time-frame alone would therefore preclude our involvement in initial teacher education. Again, we therefore suggest that the consultation is halted to enable more meaningful engagement between the government and the sector.”

And Oxford argued: “There is little justification for a costly and time-consuming process of reaccreditation, particularly at the current time given the wider challenges of the pandemic across the whole education sector, and the time scales suggested are unworkable.”

The National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT) also warned in its consultation response that, if implemented, the proposed timescale would “pose an enormous threat to the teacher supply pipeline” and “risk the loss of high-quality provision from the system”.

“The current proposals allow just five months for providers to undertake all of this work and complete the accreditation process itself,” NASBTT said.

“We do not believe that high-quality outcomes can be achieved in this timescale and a rushed approach runs the real risk of low-quality provision, the loss of key providers from the sector and large gaps in provision by phase, subject and geographical location.”

5. Unsound structures

There has been no attempt from the government to conceal the fact that the teacher training market will have to undergo fairly radical reform in order for the review to achieve its core aims.

The report says it is “unlikely” the proposed requirements can be delivered “successfully and in full” within the “current market configuration”.

Therefore it suggests “many providers will wish or need to create formal partnerships, either with organisations of similar type to themselves, or with different kinds of organisations or existing providers, in order to create the wide range of capacity which will be needed”.

In any case, it says all structures should encompass the “key roles” of “the accredited provider”, “ITT lead partners”, and “placement schools”.

But many stakeholders fear the changes could end up cutting certain providers out of the picture - and compromising teacher supply as a result.

Oxford said: “The development of a national model for ITE provision, centrally controlled, with accredited providers working with ‘lead partners’, will significantly challenge university involvement in ITE.

“Current university-school partnerships, even those as well-established as the Oxford Internship Scheme, could be ‘squeezed out’ in a model which would make it difficult for established local partnerships to operate.

“The proposed structure would threaten our current model of collaborative partnership, in which schools and the university work together to design, deliver and evaluate the programme.”

And Cambridge argued: “These proposals impose a single model of ITT which would make teaching a less attractive profession for trainees with a strong academic profile.

“Compromising opportunity and choice in this way is contrary to what happens in the best-performing education systems internationally, which recognise that professional academic study raises the status of the profession.”

UCL also warned of a “hierarchical structure based on contractual relationships and the imposition rather than co-construction of programmes”.

And NASBTT said: “Whilst not explicitly stated, there appears to be a clear preference, signalled in multiple places throughout the report, for large providers, operating at scale, with local, contracted ‘delivery partners’ operating at a local level.

“This represents a significant threat to school-based provision which, by its nature, operates at a smaller, local level.”

A DfE spokesperson said in response to concerns raised about the review: “Supporting our teachers with the highest quality training and development is the best way we can improve pupil outcomes, and we want all teachers to have a world-class start to their career.

“We continue to engage with the sector on proposed changes to initial teacher training and we will respond to the review’s recommendations later this year.”