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This paper draws on findings from a national evaluation of the Teacher Training Agency’s National Partnership Programme (NPP) (2001–2005) to analyse the current practice of partnership in initial teacher education in England. The paper begins by drawing on the MOTE studies (Furlong, et al., 2000) undertaken in the 1990s to describe the practice of partnership during that decade. It goes on to describe the changing policy context of teacher education in England since new Labour came to power in 1997, including the Government’s concern substantially to increase the numbers of new teachers entering the profession; it was this commitment, the authors argue, that was in part behind the development of the NPP which was intended to increase both the quality and capacity of schools to take part in initial teacher education. The authors go on to describe the NPP as it was put into practice in nine Government regions across England and their evaluation of it, which included 127 interviews with a range of stakeholders within each of the government regions. They suggest that, although the programme did probably contribute to increasing the numbers of partnership places in schools during its lifetime, the NPP did not alter the underlying model of partnership; indeed, they suggest that in many cases the practice of partnership in England had changed little since the mid 1990s. However, they conclude that the NPP did have an important impact on provision in that it further undermined the pedagogical and epistemological dimensions of partnership that many teacher educators in the 1990s saw as central to collaborative work between schools and higher education institutions (HEIs). The NPP, they suggest, further encouraged the development of a ‘technical rationalist’ approach to teacher education, an approach that fits well with new Labour’s broader vision for the management of the teaching profession in England.

service at a faster rate than others, possibly because local government manages over eighty per cent of the spending on education. In periods when spending on education is being strictly controlled, as at present [1], the variation between authorities will need to be monitored to ensure that the least well provided for areas do not suffer disproportionately. Recognition of the need for monitoring can be seen in the recent HMI report on expenditure policies. [2] Variation in levels of provision is not a recent phenomenon as the first part of this article illustrates. The second half of the article considers in detail one aspect of the variation, namely pupil teacher ratios. Teachers are one of a range of 'inputs' into the education service, (others include ancillary staff, books and equipment), which might be affected by any reduction in spending. Pupil teacher ratios are one area where statistics are now available and it is therefore possible to consider what regional variations have occurred in pupil teacher ratios since local government reorganisation in 1974. Pupil teacher ratios suffer like many other indices from being a 'crude' measure because they reveal nothing about the standard of the teachers or their qualifications. However, for the purpose of analysis they have the advantage of