That is the charge made in an open letter to Mr Gove from James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities¡¯ Council for the Education of Teachers, who says he is ¡°concerned and disappointed¡± about the minister stating on two occasions his desire to move initial teacher training (ITT) away from universities and towards schools.

He adds that the timing of the statements appeared ¡°to coincide¡± with the row sparked by 100 academics signing a letter to two national newspapers last week criticising Mr Gove¡¯s plans for the national curriculum.

¡°Any link would be unfair, given that the letter¡­was not issued in the context of ITT and many of the signatories have no direct involvement in the delivery of ITT programmes,¡± he writes.

He says that universities and schools have been working ¡°tirelessly¡± since 2010 to ensure that the coalition¡¯s proposals to boost school-led provision of teacher training were a success and that ¡°hostile and unsupportive statements from government¡± make this difficult to sustain.

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A spokeswoman for the Department for Education said that schools were ¡°a brilliant breeding-ground for our future teachers ¨C recent Ofsted inspection figures of initial teacher training underline that¡±.

She added that while ¡°some of the best teacher training¡± was provided by partnerships between schools and universities, ¡°we want schools to lead those partnerships¡±.

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In a separate letter to Sir Michael, Mr Noble-Rogers says an Ofsted press release on 22 March that claimed school-led providers were leading the way in improving the quality of initial teacher training was ¡°misleading¡±, ¡°biased against university involvement¡± and ¡°inaccurate and inappropriately political¡±.

¡°It compares HEI [higher education institution] provision unfavourably with that provided by SCITTs [school-centred initial teacher training] despite the fact the small number of inspections carried out so far have not been representative of the whole sector,¡± the letter says.

¡°It does not refer to the fact that the results of the HE inspections have in almost all cases been positive¡­and was also factually inaccurate in that one of the ¡®outstanding¡¯ reports relates to employment-based provision run by the University of Cumbria.¡±

Ofsted said it was ¡°happy to acknowledge¡± that Cumbria¡¯s employment-based provision had achieved an ¡°outstanding¡± grade but rejected the letter¡¯s central claims.

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An Ofsted spokeswoman said: ¡°We fully stand by the central conclusion in the press notice that school-led partnerships have been leading the way in providing outstanding teacher training provision¡­This is based on the evidence from inspections carried out so far under the new framework.¡±

Last week, Sir Michael entered the argument between Mr Gove and the group of academics telling them to get out of their ¡°ivory towers¡± in an interview with The Times.

john.elmes@tsleducation.com