Estonian Homework

PLA, Iceland, 21-24 June 2010 ‘Teacher educators’

By Eve Eisenschmidt, Margus Pedaste

1. Who are considered to be Teacher Educators in your country?

Teacher education is in Estonia at university level. Teacher educators are therefore usually academically
educated university lecturers, senior lecturers and professors. Some work has been done by research staff
and PhD students. PhD students has to practice teaching at a university according to their curriculum. A
university lecturer in Estonia is expected to be able to teach and do research equally well; to be a
supervisor and a counsellor, to be aware of the latest scientific researches and innovations in one’s
educational field, to cooperate with employers and colleagues, to take care of one’s professional
development and if needed, also do different kinds of administrative work. This is not homogenous group,
because university teachers often miss educational preparation. This is a problem mostly connected to
secondary (compulsory) school subject teachers. Their initial teacher training is based on a specific subject
and their teaching competences are weaker. Indeed, some of them are graduated as school teachers and
have experiences as teachers in general school. Our main problem could be that different non-pedagogical
subjects are taught by people who are not teacher educators. We would call the staff that teaches general
pedagogy or didactics as teacher educators but the pure subject (e.g. biology, Estonian language, history
or mathematics) is often taught by those who have never worked at school and in a classroom where most
of the learners are not teacher training students (e.g. biologist, philologist, historian, math science
specialist). In nowadays, the school teachers who support student teachers school practice are considered
to be teacher educators, but not in policy.

2. Is there a policy on Teacher Educators?

According to Outline requirements for teacher training, the course of university pedagogy is provided (6
ECTS) during the doctoral studies. For improving the professional development of teacher educators, the
National Strategy of Teacher Education defines that all general competence requirements set for teachers
also extend to teacher educators. The national strategy claims that universities that educate teachers will
generate a competence model for university teachers as well, carrying out an analysis of development
needs and creating a support system to promote university teaching. Universities have to pay more
attention to teacher educators teaching competences and to developing appropriate support systems for
that. In Estonia, according to the Outline requirements for teacher training the teachers teaching didactics

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have to have at least three years of experience in teaching the corresponding subject or speciality in an
educational institution on the corresponding educational level.
In addition to that, teachers providing didactics training for pre-education teachers, class teachers, subject
teachers (in a basic school and upper secondary school), subject teachers (general education in a
vocational school or for vocational teachers) have to teach, during three-year periods, at least 100 lessons
in the corresponding subject or speciality in an educational institution on the corresponding educational
level. However, this aim is not always fulfilled as well as it is not defined which subjects belong to the
training of didactics.

3. To what extent are initial Teacher Education, continuous TE and continuing professional
development seen as a coherent whole or totally separated undertakings?
Initial teacher education lasts in Estonia from three (kindergarten teachers) to five (almost all other
teachers) years. After graduation, the teachers can start their career in a school and there are no any
compulsory requirements for continuous professional development. A principal of a school can decide if a
teacher can work as a teacher. The only written requirements are set for advancing in career. If the
teachers wish to acquire a higher degree of senior teacher or teacher methodologist (their salary is
depending on this) then there is a need for at least 160 hours of in-service courses during the last five
years. In addition, there are some optional recommendations for continuous professional development. It is
expected that the graduated teachers would take an induction year programme during their first year of
work. However, only a small number of graduates is taking that (mainly class teachers and kindergarten
teachers). In service training is on an open market in Estonia and there are no guidelines for the teachers
and providers of in-service courses for building up a coherent needs based programme for a long time
period. It means that in-service is mainly an undertaking that is totally separated from initial teacher
education and we are not happy about that. The induction year programmes are provided by the
universities which provide initial teacher education but many of the graduates do not take these courses
because they do not have to that. By now we taking our first steps in developing that kind of coherent
continues lifelong learning profiles for different teachers.

4. How are the different kinds of Teacher Educator referred to in policy documents about teacher
education or the education system?
Outline requirements for teacher training states that higher education pedagogue is one educator in teacher
education among the other educators (teachers). There is stated that the teacher educators have to follow
the same requirements that are set on the specific level for higher education. In addition there are stated

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the requirements in point 2 of the current document. However, the different kinds of teacher educators are
not referred in particular policy documents about teacher education. It is even not defined who are teacher
educators and how they could be divided. We see that this one area where we could learn from the
planned PLA and Estonia would really benefit if there would be an initiative for developing an international
standard of teacher educators.

5. What are the competences that Teacher Educators need? How homogeneous do these need
to be?
Teacher educators’ elections are carried out as regular election in the university. It means that lecturers and
docents as well as researchers and senior researchers are elected in the level of a faculty or institute and
professors in the level of university council or an analogue of this. Their competences are evaluated by a
committee of experts and decisions are made mainly on the basis of their suggestions but often by people
who are not teacher educators. Our concern is that the teacher educators have to follow the same
requirements that are developed for all positions. These are too general and pay not enough attention on
teaching competencies. There is sometimes too much focused on the outcomes of research even if there is
written that candidates must be evaluated in respect of their competence in research and in the
development activities related to research, as well as in respect of their competence in teaching and in the
related teaching development (see guidelines of the University of Tartu at
http://www.ut.ee/orb.aw/class=file/action=preview/id=44614/Guidelines_for_evaluating_candidates_to_posit
ions_of_teaching_and_research_staff_270407.pdf). The guidelines for evaluating research competencies
are much more clear and objective in comparison with the guidelines for evaluating teaching competencies.