Synthesis report project by European Agency for Development of Special Needs Education

The report 'Teacher Education for Inclusion across Europe – Challenges and Opportunities’ is available on the project web area – initially in English and later in 21 Agency languages.

This report brings together various strands of evidence gathered during the Agency Teacher Education for Inclusion project, which started in 2009 and will end in 2012.

The objectives of this report are to:

-      Provide a synthesis of national level trends, similarities and differences with relevant contextual information and supporting information from the literature reviews and country study visits;

-      Identify key issues and common challenges for policy makers and initial teacher education (ITE) institutions in moving towards teacher education for inclusion within different national policy contexts;

-      Disseminate information about innovations and approaches to overcoming barriers to changing policy and practice for teacher education;

-      Identify recommendations for initial teacher education and for wider education policy, underpinned by evidence from European and national level information and project research.

Examples of practice in teacher education from member countries have been drawn upon in the report to illustrate key points  and to stimulate thinking in moving towards teacher education which effectively prepares all new teachers to meet diverse needs in today’s classrooms.

The report discusses some of the common challenges identified by member countries and by recent European and international literature. It provides a summary of country practice in teacher education for inclusion, including key features, curriculum content, assessment, information about teacher educators and competences. The analysis of findings throughout the report is summarised in a section on key issues and challenges before making recommendations for addressing these in order to strengthen teacher education for inclusion.

Teacher Education for Inclusion Across Europe – Challenges and Opportunities: The Project synthesis report

Teacher Education for Inclusion across Europe – Challenges and Opportunities presents a synthesis of policy and practice from 25 Agency member countries.  The Teacher Education for Inclusion project investigated how all teachers are prepared via their initial training to meet the needs of more diverse learners in the classroom.

This report draws on the detailed accounts of policy and practice in this area of work, prepared by participating countries and also on policy and literature reviews and information gathered during country study visits.
Examples of innovative practice are included throughout the document, which concludes with a review of the wider policy framework to support teacher education for inclusion and a summary of key issues and challenges.

The report makes recommendations both for wider policy and, more specifically to support further development of teacher education for inclusion.

This report sets out the project methodology and background context for teacher education for inclusion in Europe and includes information about the structure and content of teacher education programmes, including teaching practice, the role and development of teacher educators and the competences considered necessary to be an effective, inclusive teacher.

In addition to the English version, the synthesis report will soon be available in all official Agency languages on the Agency website.

Background Information

In order to put the Agency project activities into a wider context, an extensive review of literature has been undertaken and two documents are now available:

1. a review of international policy statements impacting upon teacher education. This document presents information on documents, reports and project write-ups from key international organisations: mainly the European Council, Parliament and Commission, UNESCO, OECD and the Council of Europe.
2. a review of international research literature in the field of teacher education generally and teacher education for inclusion specifically. The review has been developed with input from representatives of the European Commission, DG Education and Culture, UNESCO International Bureau of Education and OECD-CERI. Most importantly, a review of research information has been conducted by experts from 18 countries participating in the Agency project and this is also included in the review document.