Setting the scene for interrogating teacher education through open and distance learning

Abstract

Teacher education and open and distance learning (ODL) are separately complex and critically important fields of endeavour. Used together, they have the potential to enhance the effective, efficient and equitable provision of education and to maximise access to such provision by various categories of disadvantaged learners. This chapter sets the scene for the book’s interrogation of the pressures on, and the possibilities of, teacher education through ODL that can generate long-term and sustainable outcomes for learners, their families and their communities in developing and developed nations. The chapter outlines the key issues framing the book, identifies previous and current publications that it is intended to complement and extend, and explains the book’s rationale, development and structure. Three organising questions are then articulated that are covered in the intervening chapters and responses to which are synthesised in the final chapter in the book.