The quality of teacher educators in the European policy debate: actions and measures to improve the professionalism of teacher educators

Abstract

This study examines how the contemporary European policy debate addresses the further development of the quality of teacher educators. A classification framework based on the literature on professionalism was used to compare European and Member State policy actions and measures on the quality of teacher educators through an analysis of seven European policy documents and a questionnaire completed by key policy-makers in 16 European countries. The findings show that European Union policy documents pay limited attention to the quality of teacher educators. However, the professionalism of teacher educators receives more policy attention at the level of individual Member States. Most of these policies are part of general policies for higher education teachers, while the initiative lies with governments and teacher education institutes. The role of the professionals themselves in developing policies to strengthen their professionalism seems very limited.

Keywords:

• teacher educator
• teacher policy
• European policy
• professionalism

Notes

1. Although the OECD document Teachers Matter is not strictly European, it has strongly influenced the European debates on teachers and teacher education and is therefore included in our analysis of policy documents.

2. See Snoek et al. (2009) for an in-depth description of the document analysis.

3. The thematic working group also includes participants from European Union candidate countries like Iceland and Turkey, and Norway.