National Guidelines for Differentiated Teacher Education Programmes

The National Guidelines are based on the National Curriculum Regulations for Differentiated Teacher Education Programmes for Years 1 – 7 and Years 5 – 10. The Regulations provide the overarching policy for the differentiated teacher education programmes designed for primary and lower secondary education.   

The National Guidelines have their legal basis in the Regulations for Differentiated Teacher Education Programmes for Primary and Lower Secondary Education. The Guidelines supplement the Regulations and provide the policy for the institutions’ programme descriptions.

The Guidelines are to ensure a nationally coordinated teacher education that satisfies the quality requirements of the teacher education programmes for primary and lower secondary education.

Each institution must prepare programme descriptions stipulating academic content, teaching practice, organization, working methods and assessment methods. The institutions’ programme descriptions must comply with the Regulations and National guidelines. The programme descriptions must be passed by the institution’s Board.   

The Guidelines for each subject express the intended learning outcome, describing what the students are to know and be capable of after completing a course.

Learning outcome is defined in accordance with the overarching descriptions in the National Qualifications Framework, which describes the knowledge, skills and general competence a candidate is expected to have at the different stages of the programme. 

The primary and lower secondary teacher education programmes are to appear as two clearly defined and differentiated education programmes (cf. the National Curriculum Regulations). Therefore two sets of Guidelines for the differentiated primary and lower secondary teacher education programmes have been developed.

• Link to the guidelines for differentiated teacher education