In 2004, a regional Task Force on Teacher Education was established with responsibility for and oversight of the professional aspects of teacher educa­tion, as well as for quality assurance, accreditation and accountability in teacher education within the region. Since the accreditation system envisaged would build on the national systems of teacher education and accreditation, it was necessary to obtain documentation on these national systems-the practices and policies in current use in teacher education, and the issues that institutions face. The Task Force on Teacher Education felt that information on practices, policies, and programmes would provide the basis for creating a regional framework for standards in teaching and teacher education and the challenges that institutions faced in meeting these standards. Standards would serve to guide institutions in their development and evaluation of programmes. It is against this background that CARICOM decided to conduct a comprehensive survey of teacher education within the Caribbean region-to provide the basis for creating a framework and a set of standards. The author of this paper was the consultant contracted to conduct this study.