Seminar to discuss the quality of teacher education and mobility of teachers

The Vice Rector of Helsinki University, Professor Hannele Niemi, one of the speakers at the seminar, stresses the importance of evaluation in the development of teaching.

- Systematic evaluations in teacher education are imperative. Evaluations and quality assurance should create interaction and cooperation between partners who have different educational responsibilities vis-à-vis society. All evaluation processes should include a developmental aspect, and every effort must be made to make the profession strong to meet future challenges.

- Teachers need high quality academic and pedagogical knowledge in their work. They also need the ability to cooperate with other educators. Public trust in the work that teachers do could be increased by improving the interaction of representatives of the teaching profession with other partners and stakeholders in society. Here, every effort must be made to assure high quality in teacher education. Quality assurance should take into consideration the various requirements and educational components of the teaching profession, says Niemi.

A review titled Research-based Teacher Education in Finland, edited by Ritva Jakku-Sihvonen and Hannele Niemi, will be published in the seminar. In it, teacher educators explain how Finnish teacher education was reformed as a part of the Bologna process from 2003 to 2006. The book describe the national networked process for renewing the teacher education curricula and teachers' pedagogical studies. Furthermore, professors from different Finnish universities present their innovative ideas of the training of student teachers and the challenges they see in developing research-based teacher education.

Further information:
- Counsellor of Education Armi Mikkola, tel. +358 9 160 77426
- Senior Adviser Birgitta Vuorinen, tel. +358 9 160 77255

For the media:
– Director of Communications and Public Relations Marjo Merivirta, +358 9 160 77407, GSM +358 40 701 9525