This book has its origins in conversations that started when the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET) and the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) jointly agreed to co-sponsor a World Assembly of Teacher Educators in Melbourne in July 2003, hosted by Monash University. The editors of this book were not only intimately involved in the management of the conference but had also been key figures in the Associations involved. Tony Townsend had been secretary, and on the national board of the South Pacific Association for Teacher Education (SPATE), which later became ATEA and had previously managed a SPATE conference in Frankston, Australia, in the 1980s. He is currently the President of ICET and now works at Florida Atlantic University. Richard Bates has been a long time board member of ATEA and is currently President of that organization. He is also a Board member of ICET. The International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET) was founded in 1953 for the purpose of emphasizing international cooperation in educational development in order to improve the quality of teacher education as well as to expand global e- cational opportunities for people in teacher education. Since that time, ICET has developed into an international association of practitioners of teacher education, policy and decision-makers in education, government and business dedicated to global development through education. ICET is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and participates in NGO meetings and other UNESCO-sponsored conf- ences around the world.
