This article introduces the special issue "Advancing Equitable Access to Quality Education Globally: Innovations in Curriculum, Teacher Education, and Professional Development," featuring articles that report on a multi-country project examining the challenges and opportunities of globalization for three types of reforms that have seen significant innovation in the past decade. These reforms encompass the school curriculum, teachers' education, and teachers' professional development (collectively referred to in this article as SCTEPD). The reporting countries were undergoing rapid transformation that incorporated the three reforms when we began our work, and included: India, New Zealand, Peru, Scotland, and Wales. This introductory article offers a retrospective and prospective discussion of global reforms in three key areas of SCTEPD, providing context for the articles that follow. In this introductory article, we use Cohen and Mehta's (2017) theoretical framework to analyze these reforms, aiming to understand the conditions that lead to successful, lasting reforms and the extent to which these reforms have increased equity and quality in education for all learners.

In the absence of significant research into the knowledge base of teachers in the Further Education and Skills sector in England, this qualitative study, conducted with four teacher educators, sought to describe this knowledge base. The research also investigated the extent to which traditional conceptualisations of teacher knowledge were adequate to capture the knowledge FE teachers need to teach. Data were collected principally through semi-structured and focus group interviews with the four teacher educators. Findings showed that the knowledge base of teachers in the FE setting is complex, nuanced and not fully captured within existing traditional conceptualisations of teacher knowledge. For example, in addition to these more traditional conceptualisations of teacher knowledge the research showed a key component of knowledge was 'industry knowledge'. The research highlights the challenges for teacher educators working in FE settings in terms of their capacity to develop teachers' subject-specific pedagogical knowledge, and suggests key implications for the development of subject-specific provision in teacher education in FE. It also raises significant issues about what good quality work-based specialist mentoring support might entail.

As Wales marks a quarter of a century of devolved policymaking in education, this edited volume celebrates the successes of – and grapples critically with the ongoing challenges faced by – Wales’s education system. Researchers from across the UK education landscape pose critical questions: about the leadership of reform; about where responsibility lies for the successful implementation of a number of post-devolution policy innovations, such as the Foundation Phase and the Curriculum for Wales; about the nature and ownership of accountability; about how professionals can best be developed and supported to deliver the current ambitious reform journey; and about a great deal more. In answer to the recurring question of ‘by whom shall Wales be raised’, this volume suggests the responsibility lies with all of us, at every level and in every domain of an education system that is unrecognisable from that which preceded devolution, and which today continues to evolve apace.

In England, the ITT Market Review required all initial teacher education (ITE) providers to review their programmes against a set of government-mandated criteria for accreditation. This paper explores the hidden intellectual work of teacher educators as they adapt their programmes in the light of this change. Whilst research on the impact of teacher education policy can often frame teacher educators as lacking agency, our contention is that teacher educators are highly adaptive and flexible, making adjustments to their practices as needed. Based on interviews conducted with teacher educators working within 14 research-intensive universities, we capture their thinking, planning and dilemmas, presented as two vignettes. The analysis uses Shulman's signature pedagogy to understand how teacher educators have placed importance on particular aspects of their programmes while working through the accreditation process. We argue this 'moment in time' reveals the often-hidden intellectual work that constitutes planning and designing of teacher education experiences.