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[email protected] Education Research and Perspectives, Vo1.28, No.I, 2001 83 Teacher Education in New Zealand, 1920-1980: Curriculum, Location, and Control Gregory Lee University of Waikato Howard Lee University of Otago This paper argues that teacher education in New Zealand during the period 19201980 was characterised hy constant debate over the content, location, and control of teacher education programmes. Successive reports into teacher education are examined, with special regard to their recommendations about the curriculum, the most appropriate institutional enuironments(s) within which to deliver training programmes, and the matter of which authority-tbe central Department of Education or tbe regional education hoards-was tbought best suited to control the training process. It is argued that complaints were voiced more frequently from the mid 1920s about the low status of the teaching service, the inadequate time assigned to academic and/or professional studies, and the lack of co-operation between teachers' colleges and universities in their educational activities. By the 1960s the minimum period of teacher training had been extended by one year, and educationists began to react more favourably to earlier suggestions that closer relationships ought to be encouraged between universities and colleges. The conclusion is reached that although by the end of the period under review some of the institutional conservatism and isolation surrounding colleges and universities had given way to a willingness to explore new arrangements for teacher education, debates over the nature, scope and site of teacher education continued.