Quality assurance in teacher education in Europe

Developing systems for quality assurance and accreditation in teacher education is regarded as one of the most important ways of improving the quality and effectiveness of education as a whole. This study discusses current arrangements for evaluating and accrediting institutions and programmes for initial and in-service teacher education for primary and general secondary education in 30 European countries. It considers existing regulations concerned with evaluating initial teacher education, and the procedures and criteria governing external and internal evaluation of this provision. The players involved in evaluation, the impact its findings may have on training institutions, and how those findings are made known are reviewed briefly in turn. The study further identifies bodies responsible for in-service teacher training and considers how they are evaluated and with what results. It also describes the main ongoing national debates and reforms focusing on quality assurance in this field.