As global concerns increase about the effectiveness of schools in edu Tlcating and developing the human resource potential critical to economic and social advancement, countries worldwide have embarked on a wide range of school improvement initiatives. Central to these is the belief that good teachers are the most critical component of what schools need to do a good job, and good teachers need to benefit from good education programmes (Villegas-Reimers and Reimers 2000). Presumably, "good" teacher education programmes are those capable of making timely, appropriate, and effective responses to our rapidly changing social, cultural, economic, and environmental contexts; those able to engage in self-study and reflective practice that ultimately lead to the kind of attitudinal and programmatic change required to produce more effective outcomes from the teacher preparation process.