During his time as Michael Gove¡¯s special adviser, Dominic Cummings elicited almost as many controversial headlines as his boss. So is always likely to pique interest.

In a departure from politicians¡¯ and civil servants¡¯ traditional staunch defence of policies, he offers an ¡°Open Policy Experiment¡±, ¡°specifically [inviting] criticism of what we did¡± in relation to the Department for Education¡¯s changes to initial teacher training (ITT) and the introduction of the controversial School Direct policy.

Given the amount of condemnation the changes evoked, Mr Cummings is quick to issue a disclaimer that he is not inviting ¡°abuse, praise, general whining¡± but ¡°specific criticism that can be used to improve things¡±.

A ¡°curse¡±, he writes, of being in the DfE was ¡°generalised whining¡± and the fact that, when asked about the specificities of complaints, ¡°<1% of people had an answer¡±.

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Mr Cummings points out that ¡°DfE ministers, spads, and officials watch this blog¡± ¨C as well as his former boss, the now ex-education secretary Michael Gove ¨C so the impact could be substantial.

¡°Gove is going to be involved in writing the next Tory manifesto,¡± he says. ¡°Therefore if you can show why something is wrong/stupid, you have a chance to influence him and give him ammo to head off the appalling stream of gimmicks that are¡­being cooked up.¡±

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Unfortunately, the first poster to the discussion does not seem to take Mr Cummings¡¯ comments on board about the need for specifics. ¡°Shut down all the PGCEs,¡± declares ollieorange2. ¡°Teaching is a very practical subject that you learn by doing.¡± Mr Cummings replies that ¡°I¡¯ll OK this comment this time but only to use it as an example of what I do NOT want to see¡±.

Later comments stay better aligned with Mr Cummings¡¯ brief, but it¡¯s not long before a defence of universities¡¯ involvement in ITT appears. debrakidd offers a lengthy comment on the reasons educational research is key to teacher development. ¡°I disagree that teaching is an entirely practical process ¨C it is also an intellectual one and we should have a professional responsibility to keep up to date,¡± she writes.

Amid toing and froing about the relative merits of school- and university-based training, huntingenglish asks for more transparency in ITT.

¡°Ensure all core literature from ITT courses, such as lesson plan templates and course outlines, can be accessed publicly to ensure transparency and quality,¡± he writes. ¡°More generally, transparency about recruitment of trainees and retention etc. should be shared by all SD [School Direct] schools.¡±

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Mr Cummings responds, probably to the chagrin of higher education institutions: ¡°Before I left I was working on a plan to get all ITT providers to put their materials on the web. There was a lot of resistance and bleating about IP from HEIs but I was hopeful it would happen. It has not. I¡¯m told that lawyers have, as usual, kicked up a fuss.¡±

However, divisions aside, Mr Cummings is praised by many respondents for addressing the thorny issue of ITT so openly. ¡°Pleased to see this and guarantee this will not be wasted time on your part,¡± says .

Send links to topical, insightful and quirky online comment by and about academics to chris.parr@tsleducation.com