From human capital to sustainability

Teacher education stands at the intersection of conflicting imperatives: the drive to optimise employability within market‑oriented frameworks and a transformative vision of education as a vehicle for sustainability and social justice. Using Allan’s (2003; 2008) notion of aporia, this paper examines two persistent tensions in contemporary policy. The first concerns the strain between inclusive practice and standardised accountability, which asks teachers to meet uniform targets while supporting diverse learners. The second highlights the friction between competitiveness and sustainability, where short‑term efficiency conflicts with broader ethical and ecological commitments. The paper argues that these contradictions, rather than being resolved, can work as catalysts for critical reflection, allowing teacher education to support teachers in genuinely inhabiting their role as transformative intellectuals (Giroux, 2018).