Couch, DDevine, NStewart, GT2025-03-182025-03-182022-06-082022-06-08New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies 57, 1–5 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-022-00253-40028-82762199-4714http://hdl.handle.net/10292/18878Here we critically examine the Council’s February, 2022 report, entitled Creating an equitable future-focused Initial Teacher Education (ITE) system: The new ITE requirements – the journey so far. There is an underlying tension between ITE as a university education and ITE as a professional qualification. We place to one side the assumption that a regulatory body should drive the construction of an equitable and future-focused degree programme, and outline two significant concerns the Council’s report indicates: the reification of a false binary between theory and practice; and the Council’s explicit intention to determine the content, pedagogy, and assessment of tertiary programmes.Copyright © 2022, The Author(s) under exclusive license to New Zealand Association for Research in Education. Free accessJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1007/s40841-022-00253-4