Making sure that Europe’s six milli

Making sure that Europe’s six million teachers have the essential competences

they require in order to be effective in the classroom is one of the keys to raising levels of pupil attainment; encouraging teachers to continue developing and extending their competences is vital in a fast-changing world.

Further, as noted in the European Commission’s communication ‘Rethinking Education’ (2012), the reform of education and training systems is essential to achieving higher productivity and the supply of highly skilled workers. In this context, it invited Member States to:

“revise and strengthen the professional profile of all teaching professions [by] reviewing the effectiveness as well as the academic and pedagogical quality of Initial Teacher Education, introducing coherent and adequately resourced systems for recruitment, selection, induction and professional development of teaching staff based on clearly defined competences needed at each stage of a teaching career, and increasing teacher digital competence”. (European Commission 2012a)

Such reforms need to be founded upon a shared agreement in each education system about what it takes to be a high quality teacher: what competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) they need, how these can be understood, described and deployed – and what policies and practical provisions can support teachers to acquire and develop them throughout their careers.

The Commission’s document ‘‘Supporting the Teaching Professions’ (European

Commission 2012c) notes that a lack of clarity about what society can expect from its teaching staff can make it more difficult for Member States to ensure that the same high standards of teaching apply in all schools; it can hinder sound decisions about expenditure on staffing, including recruitment, selection and human resource development. This can also have a negative impact on the status and development of the profession. While many professions are built around consensus about general standards, as well as specific practices, in teaching such common ground is too often lacking; in most professions, new knowledge is accommodated by periodically revising practice guidelines – which is not generally the case in teaching.

Therefore, Member States increasingly acknowledge the need to define clearly what teaching staff are expected to know, and be able to do; such frameworks of teacher competences can then be the basis for:

defining the learning outcomes of initial teacher education programmes,

defining criteria for recruitment and selection to teaching posts,

assessing teachers’ needs for in-service training , and

arranging the provision of professional learning opportunities so that teachers continue to develop their competences throughout their whole careers.

The guidance and advice expressed in the following pages stem from a process of ‘peer learning’ between experts on teacher education nominated by 26