Wales education secretary Kirsty Williams has created the Education Workforce Council: Teacher Education Accreditation Committee, which will be known as “the board”, to accredit individual Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes.
Its chair will be Professor John Furlong, emeritus professor of education at Oxford University’s Department of Education, and emeritus fellow of Green Templeton College in Oxford.
Prof Furlong, who undertook his PhD while working as a teacher in a London comprehensive school, has previously worked at both Swansea and Cardiff universities.
In 2001, he completed a major review of educational research capacity in Wales, including its role in CPD, and five years later he led the Review of Initial Teacher Training Provision in Wales on behalf of the Welsh Assembly government (The Furlong Report).
His deputy chairs on the new board will be Professor Olwen Mcnamara, professor of teacher education at the University of Manchester, and Dr Aine Lawlor, former CEO of the Teaching Council Ireland.
The Welsh government, which says these appointments will run until spring 2022, has previously announced a number of changes to ITE in a drive to attract the best talent to the profession. These include strengthening how schools and universities work together and increasing the role of research.
Ms Williams said: “This new board will allow more specific consideration of how ITE programmes will raise the quality of provision – attracting the right people with the right qualifications and an aptitude for teaching, to enter the profession.
“These changes and the new accreditation standards are part of our national mission to raise the standards and standing of the profession.”