High quality in less time – “Mission impossible” or room for innovation?

The overall aim is to identify what different actors, such as the state, teacher educators and students, consider to be inalienable content and which must be included in the supplementary pedagogical training for future subject teachers.

There is an acute shortage of qualified and certified teachers and we are running out of time. The major social challenge when it comes to teacher supply is tackled through a one-year supplementary pedagogical training. We don’t know enough about the consequences of removing a third of the education. Is it an impossible task or is it possible to rethink the content of the education? It gives us a unique opportunity to study what different actors consider to be the core of education. We urgently need to conduct an audit to:

be able to identify any development needs, and
ensure that the teachers’ competence is sufficient even with a shorter education.

We need an in-depth knowledge of how different actors value different educational components in order for the education to be as meaningful and effective as possible. We use several methods such as content analysis when it comes to the state’s policy texts and governing documents drawn up at the five universities included in the study, a questionnaire study to identify the students’ backgrounds and focus group interviews with teacher educators and student groups at each university to identify which knowledge and competences they consider to be indispensable in the education.