European Primary Teacher Education
Start date: Oct 1, 2009,
“School Education is increasingly acknowledge as a key area for improvement if Member States are to meet the goals under the Lisbon Strategy.” The quality of education dependents on the quality of the teacher. The quality of the teacher is depended from the education at Teacher Education Institutes (TEI). Teacher education is strongly influenced by national political demands and sometimes parochial values, traditions and sentiments. This is understandable since teachers have large and important co-responsibility for the teaching and educating of new citizen of a country and contribute to the ongoing identity of the country.Seven TEI’s have joined forces to confront national demands and procedures with an ideal to build a 'European Teacher'. They believe that it is possible to depart from the local and national environment and tradition and to use a common European heritage to build a new European citizen, fit to participate in and contribute to a new 21st century Europe in the world. The international learning community (ILC) of young people with their national socialisation and strong personal commitment is crucial to this goal. This endeavour is extraordinary, specially in the field of education. We are aware that this is a great challenge: TEI's constructing a common EPTE programme! The European Primary Teacher curriculum will be an agreed and accepted part of the first cycle degree of each TEI. We intend to develop and deliver a full one year (two semesters) programme for primary teacher education. The curriculum will have an agreed European core curriculum for Primary TE, a special European profile and an elective part for the individual student. While cutting the curriculum into 6 areas (language, mathematics, social and natural sciences, arts, pedagogics and didactics, cultural and philosophical studies), we will involve experts from all the TEI’s to contribute to the shared curriculum. Development of the new curriculum will take place on a digital 'work plaza' and through working meetings. This trans-mobility and knowledge exchange between experts of TEI’s is an added values in itself, but it is a function of it purpose to educate teacher-students in the same spirit later. The EPTE curriculum is aiming at a select group of excellent students from the participating 7 TEI, to give rise to a 'European teacher'. The project has two goals. A goal in itself. That is, to develop with European experts and coordinators from seven TEI / countries, a curriculum that does not exist yet. That is an achievement already. But the goal beyond this project and the necessary consequence of the investment is, to use this curriculum and organize a continuous transnational student mobility within the European Area of Higher Education.By the end of the project the full year curriculum will be ready (modules for the six areas; selection and tutoring, assessment and quality management), entry requirements for students, instruments for assessing language proficiency and a digital work plaza for students are ready to welcome the first group of European students to do the 'EPTE' programme in the following academic year. The programme will be executed at two European Universities, being partners of the consortium.
Get Access to the 1st Network for European Cooperation
Log In