The present reconfiguration of education by neo-liberal forces worldwide is taken as a basis for this essay. Drawing on examples of how this reconfiguration operates on national arenas through decisive and dishonest discourses of commoditisation and privatisation, management and efficiency, education for all and student-centred education, the essay looks at the Ethiopian case and how neo-liberalism operates on that arena and how a counter-hegemonic agenda was implanted through a master course for teacher educators following a different and critical practitioner inquiry approach modelling emancipation and social justice within teacher education and society at large. (Contains 1 footnote.)