report—Supporting Teacher Educators for Better Learning(European Commission
2013 ). For thefirst time in the pan-European policy agenda, this report, issued with
advisory status across all member states, positions teacher educators themselves as
a major factor in achieving improvements in teacher education and consequently,
schooling. The report, explicitly states, for example, that‘(r)eforms that enhance the
quality of teacher educators can make a significant improvement to the general
quality of teaching and therefore raise pupil attainment’(p. 1). The report then goes
on to identify the need for‘competences’to be identified at national level and for
systematic and sustained professional learning opportunities to be provided for all
teacher educators, as we describe in more detail below. The definition of the
occupational group given in the report is inclusive, seeing teacher educators as all
those who‘guide teaching staff at all stages in their careers, model good practice,
and undertake the key research that develops our understanding of teaching and
learning’(p. 2). One implication of this definition is that across Europe, teacher
educators work in schools and/or in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of some
kind—most commonly, universities, polytechnics or colleges of higher education.
This chapter starts with a brief analysis of policies and practices for teacher
educators’ professional development with particular reference to this seminal
European report and to other European policy documents which it informed, par-
ticularlySupporting the Teaching Professions for Better Learning Outcomes(EC
2012 ). We then aim to capture something of the variable impact of the 2013 report
on the member states and the reasons for that variability. This is achieved through
three sections on the‘state of play’for teacher educators’professional development
in the Netherlands and England (both EU member states) and Norway (a member of
the European Economic Area [EAA] and therefore closely associated with the EU
and its policies); these accounts are contextualised within the broad changes to each
teacher education system since 2010.
We then move to consider broader issues through a focus on Info-TED—a
pan-European organisation which essentially aims to make the aspirations of the
European Commission report into reality, albeit through a different approach to pro-
fessional learning for teacher educators. At this point, we should acknowledge our own
positions as founder members of the group. Drawing on the group’s vision, the ques-
tions we address in this chapter are: what makes for high quality professional learning
for teacher educators? What is the contribution of nation-specific provision? And what
might pan-European learning opportunities for professional development look like?
44.2 Competences and Teacher Educators’
Professional Learning
The European report of 2013 adopts the view that identification of teacher edu-
cators’‘competences’is essential in order to build robust selection and recruitment
procedures and to provide the basis for high quality professional learning. There is
also a clear focus on these competences being nationally defined and specific.
652 J. Murray et al.